A Repository with 44 Years of Unix Evolution
13 days ago
- #Software Evolution
- #Unix
- #Git Repository
- The Unix operating system's evolution from 1972 to 2015 is documented in a Git repository with 659,000 commits and 2,306 merges.
- The repository combines snapshots from Bell Labs, Berkeley University, 386BSD, and FreeBSD, totaling 850 contributors.
- Unix's design and contributions include a hierarchical file system, pipes and filters architecture, and the shell as a user-selectable process.
- The repository allows for empirical research in software engineering, information systems, and software archaeology.
- Code provenance can be traced using git blame, showing contributions from early developers like Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.
- The project involved extensive data collection, curation, and synthesis, including primary research to identify contributors.
- Future work includes expanding the repository with more open-source systems and improving author attribution coverage.