
An Overview of the Spring System (1994) [pdf] - kick
https://www.cs.fsu.edu/~awang/courses/cop5611_s2004/spring.pdf
======
phs318u
This was initially driven as a joint attempt by Sun and AT&T to “merge” the
two strains of a Unix at the time, while introducing cutting edge features
(object orientation, distributed computing, ability to run multiple OS) [0]. A
“1.1” version of the “Spring Research Distribution” was available from Sun for
a fee [1].

I don’t suppose anybody here has a copy? I can’t find any legitimate way to
procure a copy. Did Oracle get this as part of their acquisition? What were
the terms of the original license? Would love to know.

[0].
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_\(operating_system\))

[1].
[https://www.cs.albany.edu/~sdc/CSI400/Resources/comp.os.rese...](https://www.cs.albany.edu/~sdc/CSI400/Resources/comp.os.research.FAQ/FAQ-2.html#Distributed-
systems-and-microkernels)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I would not say this is a fair interpretation of events.

At Sun, the effort to merge BSD and System V was called the "lulu" project and
the end result was System V release 4 from AT&T and Solaris 2 from Sun. I was
part of that effort and responsible for the transport independent RPC piece
amongst others.

The Spring project was, in my opinion, an aspirational project to re-imagine
UNIX according to Mike Powell and others at Sun, as opposed to Plan 9 which
was re-imagining UNIX according to Rob Pike and others at the Computer Science
Research Center (CSRC) of Bell Labs.

There were interesting rivalries in AT&T about who "owned" UNIX. On one side
was the staff at CSRC who had invented it, and on the other side was Murray
Hill which had commercialized it. For nearly identical reasoning, AT&T would
not let the CSRC folks call their new OS UNIX, and Sun would not let the
Spring folks call their new OS SunOS. Both groups had, at their core, some of
the original architects of the OS that their respective company had become
known for.

~~~
kick
So glad to see you in this thread; thanks for sharing! I've considered mailing
you about Spring & Sun before (among other things: Blekko is also fascinating
given how impressive it was, how much talent it had behind it, and then how it
just sort of got subsumed/murdered into/by IBM); it's such an interesting
project! You wouldn't happen to have a copy or know anyone who might have one,
would you?

~~~
ChuckMcM
You might consider putting a contact email in your profile.

~~~
kick
Shot you a message to the one in yours, though it might have gotten sent to
spam.

I'd throw a contact address up on my HN profile if I used a provider with
something resembling decent spam-filtering, but I don't presently and I don't
really use mail enough to justify switching.

