As you may already have heard, the CSRG is going to go away after the final release of 4.4BSD. For the following reasons, it is clear that the CSRG cannot continue in its present form.

Funding has become increasingly time-consuming and difficult. We are spending more and more of our time obtaining funding, time that we would prefer to spend working on BSD. As many of you are intimately aware, computer corporations are actively seeking ways to reduce discretionary outlays. Also, as UNIX vendors have developed their own research groups, the work of the CSRG has become less necessary to them. Finally, making BSD freely redistributable has resulted in fewer distributions sold, as other organizations sell our releases for less money.

Support within the University of California has declined as BSD has become less widely used internally. Victims of our own success, many of the features once found only in BSD are now available from every vendor.

The system has become too large and complex for a group of four to architect and maintain. In particular, losing Mike Karels has made it obvious to us that the group is below critical mass for developing and distributing a complete UNIX system.

So, we intend to make the 4.4BSD-alpha distribution available around the first week of July. We will spend the summer and some part of the fall cleaning up the release and make the final 4.4BSD release available in the fall. When the final release happens is mostly dependent on when our current funding runs out. At that time we will close down the group.

BSD has always been a community effort, and, as a community effort, does not rely on a small group of people in Berkeley to keep it going. BSD will not go away, but will live on through the free software and commercial efforts of many people. We thank you for your support over the years, your funding, and, of course, the software you've contributed to make the BSD system what it is today! Kirk McKusick

Keith Bostic