Although NetApp's OS looks nothing like BSD (it has no user space for
instance, and a very different internal structure from any UNIX kernel),
we certainly did use a good bit of code from the Net/2 and BSD-lite
releases, back when that was being mostly funded by Berkeley and DARPA.
As Luke says, we used the TCP/IP stack. Also the boot and locore code
for both Intel and Alpha. And although we don't have a user space for
commands to run in, we did take chunks of user space code in commands
like "ping" and "ifconfig" and massage them into kernel code. I don't
know the specifics, but I'd be surprised if we hadn't found more stuff
to borrow over the years.
I confess that we haven't made any dollar contributions, although if you
look at the code contributions I think you'll find that Guy Harris (also
of NetApp) and myself were both early contributors. For instance, I
contributed cp(1). (When I was done, "cp -R" was a good bit faster than
the AT&T version. Instead of doing the copy for a directory in a single
pass, I scanned the directory twice, doing files on the first pass and
directories on the second. This optimized for the fact that in FFS files
in a directory tend to end up in the same cylindar group, so doing the
files all together reduces disk seeks.)
So at the time, we figured that we gave some code, and took some code --
call it even-Steven. :-)
Not that I would object if we found a way to make a corporate
contribution. We have made some source contributions to Linux, and I've
personally made some contributions to Mozilla, so we are definitely fans
of the open source movement.
Dave Hitz
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luke Mewburn [mailto:luke@mewburn.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 2:36 AM
> To: Maren S. Leizaola
> Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
> Subject: Re: Requests on Slashdot for donations for OpenBSD.
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 01:44:25AM +0800, Maren S. Leizaola wrote:
> | Network Appliance a.k.a NetApp is noticeably absent from
> the OpenBSD
> | donations page (www.openbsd.org/donations.html). Anyone who uses a
> | NetApp knows immediately that the OnTap OS is BSD, always has been
> | BSD.
>
> The fact that NetApp used some 4.xBSD and NetBSD code (most
> of which predates the existance of OpenBSD) doesn't mean that
> NetApp "owes" the OpenBSD project anything.
>
>
> AFAICT, the "BSD" code that NetApp uses (or has used) includes:
>
> * The TCP/IP stack from BSD Net/2 and 4.4BSD-lite.
>
> * The NetBSD/alpha port was originally written by
> Chris Demetriou for NetBSD (whilst he was at CMU).
> NetApp appears to have used that to get OnTAP running
> on the Alpha-based 630 and 7xx series of Filers and
> NetCaches.
>
> Luke.
>
> (Speaking for myself, not for NetBSD or NetApp).
>
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