Berkeley Software Design

Berkeley Software Design, Inc.

File:Berkeley Software Design logo.svg
Industry	Computer software
Genre	Operating system software
Founded	1991
Founder	Rick Adams, Keith Bostic, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Mike Karels, Bill Jolitz
Defunct	2001/2002
Fate	Acquired
Successor	Wind River Systems, iXsystems
Headquarters	U.S.
Products	BSD/OS
Website	Template:Web archive

Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (commonly known as BSDI or BSDi) was founded in 1991 by several members of the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG). The company developed and marketed BSD/OS (initially called BSD/386), a commercial and partially proprietary version of the BSD Unix operating system tailored for PC hardware.

Origins and BSD/386

BSDI was created by Rick Adams alongside CSRG affiliates from the University of California, Berkeley, including notable figures such as Keith Bostic, Kirk McKusick, Mike Karels, Bill Jolitz, and Donn Seeley. Before joining BSDI as its inaugural employees in 1991, Jolitz, Seeley, and Trent Hein worked at Adams's company, UUNET. In December of that year, Rob Kolstad, who formerly served as USENIX Secretary and led the software division at Convex Computer, came aboard and assumed operational leadership in 1993.

Although Jolitz contributed to the development of 386BSD, he later clarified that he was never officially employed or contracted by BSDI.

The initial release of BSD/386 occurred in January 1992, with the name reflecting its lineage from the 4.3BSD Networking Release 2 (Net/2) codebase. Priced at $995 for a complete package including source code, it presented a cost-effective alternative to AT&T’s UNIX System V licenses, which in the late 1980s were priced above $20,000.

USL v. BSDI legal dispute

Towards the end of 1991, Unix System Laboratories (USL), an AT&T subsidiary, initiated legal action against BSDI alleging that BSD/386 incorporated proprietary trade secrets. Following USL’s acquisition by Novell, a settlement reached in 1994 mandated that future BSD/OS versions be based exclusively on the CSRG’s 4.4BSD-Lite release, which was free from USL intellectual property claims. During this time frame, Rob Kolstad served as BSDI’s president and guided the company throughout the decade.

Deployment in internet infrastructure

Under Kolstad’s guidance, BSDI concentrated on positioning its offerings within internet infrastructure markets. By the mid-1990s, BSD/386 had become the foundation for many leading global websites’ BSD-based systems. A survey conducted in 1995 identified BSDI as the dominant software platform powering data centers hosting Internet servers. Subsequently, BSDI introduced an "Internet Server" edition specifically designed to incorporate open-source server applications.

Corporate transitions and divestitures

In 1999, inspired by Red Hat's successful IPO, BSDI appointed new leadership with plans to go public; however, these efforts did not materialize and shortly after Kolstad’s exit, the company faced insolvency.

The year 2000 saw BSDI merge with Walnut Creek CDROM—known for distributing freeware and open-source software—and also acquire Telenet System Solutions, a provider of Internet infrastructure servers.

By 2001, financial difficulties compelled BSDI to sell its software division—including BSD/OS and open-source assets—to Wind River Systems. Following this sale, the company rebranded as iXsystems with an emphasis on server hardware manufacturing. Wind River soon ended its sponsorship of Slackware Linux and transferred ownership of FreeBSD to FreeBSD Mall, Inc. in 2002. Confronted with competition from freely available BSD and Linux alternatives, Wind River discontinued BSD/OS support by December 2003; nevertheless, its innovations continue within community-driven BSD projects such as FreeBSD.

In 2002, OffMyServer acquired iXsystems’ hardware segment and restored the iXsystems brand name in 2005.

See also

• BSD
• FreeBSD
• Wind River Systems
• iXsystems