I think that the old BSD Net/1 was not a fully operating system, but an add-on to 4.3BSD for VAX, as I realize from http://gunkies.org/wiki/Net/1 and http://gunkies.org/wiki/Net/2
Is it right?
In the same web page I read: "This software suite is copyright The Regents of the University of California and may be freely redistributed. No previous license, either AT&T or Berkeley is required. The release costs $400.00 US."
So, it was free or not?
I think that someone could have bought just one copy and then give other copies to all his friend. Is it right?
Now the last question: If Net/1 was an add-on, users had also to buy a Unix license from AT&T?
Could someone give me more info?
Thanks to all.
Best Answer
Net/1 was a subset of 4.3BSD, containing just the source code and documentation for its networking components. It was not a full operating system. It did not contain any AT&T source code and thus did not require a license from AT&T. It was useful to parties who had a Unix or non-Unix system without TCP and wanted to port TCP to it, or who were running a system without source code and wanted to run (possibly customized) Berkeley utilities (Net/1 came out during the time that 680x0 workstations with binary-only Unix licenses were still popular.) It was free; the $400 charge was if you wanted Berkeley to write and mail you a magtape. Once you had it, you could have redistributed it, as long as you followed terms of the BSD license (such as keeping copyright notices intact).