Berkeley System Distribution
| Developer | Computer Systems Research Group, University of California, Berkeley |
|---|---|
| Written in | C |
| OS family | Unix |
| Working state | Superseded by derivatives (see below) |
| Source model | Historically closed source, gradual transition to free software from 1991 on. |
| Initial release | 1977 |
| Latest release | 4.4-Lite2 / 1995 |
| Available in | English |
| Platforms | PDP-11, VAX, Intel 80386 |
| Kernel type | Monolithic |
| Userland | BSD |
| Default user interface | Command-line interface |
| License | BSD licenses |
| Official website | www |
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) was a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995. Today, the term "BSD" is often used non-specifically to refer to any of the BSD descendants which form a branch of the family of Unix-like operating systems. Operating systems derived from the original Berkeley source code, such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, are actively maintained.
BSD was initially called Berkeley Unix because it shared the same source code with AT&T Research Unix. 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 its familiarity to many technology company founders and engineers.
Although these proprietary BSD derivatives were largely superseded by the UNIX System V Release 4 and OSF/1 systems in the 1990s, later BSD releases provided the basis for several ongoing open source projects including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Darwin, and TrueOS. These, in turn, have been incorporated into proprietary operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple's macOS and iOS.
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