Berkeley Software Distribution

"BSD" redirects here. For the family of free software licenses, see BSD licenses. For other uses, see BSD (disambiguation).

BSD
DeveloperComputer Systems Research Group
Written inC
OS familyUnix
Working stateDiscontinued
Source modelOriginally source-available, later open-source
Initial releaseMarch 9, 1978; 46 years ago (1978-03-09)
Final release4.4-Lite2 / June 1995; 29 years ago (1995-06)
Available inEnglish
PlatformsPDP-11, VAX, Intel 80386
Kernel typeMonolithic
UserlandBSD
InfluencedNetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, NeXTSTEP, Darwin
Influenced byUnix
Default
user interface		Unix shell
LicenseBSD

The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution[1] (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley. Since the original has become obsolete, the term "BSD" is commonly used for its open-source descendants, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

BSD was initially called Berkeley Unix because it was based on the source code of the original Unix developed at Bell Labs. In the 1980s, BSD was widely adopted by workstation vendors in the form of proprietary Unix variants such as DEC Ultrix and Sun Microsystems SunOS due to its permissive licensing and familiarity to many technology company founders and engineers. These proprietary BSD derivatives were largely superseded in the 1990s by UNIX SVR4 and OSF/1.

Later releases of BSD provided the basis for several open-source operating systems including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Darwin and TrueOS. These, in turn, have been used by proprietary operating systems, including Apple's macOS and iOS, which derived from them[2] and Microsoft Windows (since at least 2000 and XP), which used (at least) part of its TCP/IP code, which was legal.[3][better source needed] Code from FreeBSD was also used to create the operating systems for the PlayStation 5,[4] PlayStation 4,[5] PlayStation 3,[6] PlayStation Vita,[7] and Nintendo Switch.[8][9]

  1. ^ "Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project". The FreeBSD Project. BSD (Berkeley Standard Distribution). Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  2. ^ "Apple Kernel Programming Guide: BSD Overview". Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  3. ^ "Actually, Windows DOES use some BSD code". Archived from the original on March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  4. ^ "Kernel". PlayStation 5 Dev Wiki.
  5. ^ "Open Source Software used in PlayStation 4". Archived from the original on December 12, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  6. ^ "Open Source Software used in PlayStation 3". Archived from the original on November 11, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
  7. ^ "Open Source Software used in PlayStation Vita". Archived from the original on December 12, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
  8. ^ "任天堂製品に関連するオープンソースソフトウェアのソースコード配布ページ｜サポート情報｜Nintendo". www.nintendo.co.jp. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  9. ^ Cao (March 8, 2017). "Nintendo Switch runs FreeBSD". FreeBSDNews.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.