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<h3>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</h3>

<h3>BSD SUPPLIERS UNITE TO DELIVER THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR INTERNET
  OPERATING SYSTEMS</h3>

<h4>The New BSDI To Deliver Renowned BSD Operating System Technologies And
  Back The Rapidly Growing FreeBSD Open Source Community</h4>

<p><b>Colorado Springs, Colo., March 9, 2000:</b> Berkeley Software
  Design, Inc. (BSDI)  announced today that it has merged with Walnut
  Creek CDROM, the distributor of the popular FreeBSD operating system.
  As a merged company, the new BSDI unites the leading developers and
  suppliers of the Berkeley Software Distribution operating system
  BSDI will develop and deliver advanced BSDŽ Internet operating systems
  and platforms, while providing the open source FreeBSD Project with
  technology, backing and expanded support.</p>

<p>BSD operating systems run some of the Internet's most highly trafficked
  sites and largest service providers, including Yahoo!, Microsoft's
  Hotmail and UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company.  BSD and Linux are today's
  fastest-growing operating systems, according to Survey.com, the leading
  eResearch company.</p>

<p>BSD operating system, networking and Internet technologies have
  achieved widespread acceptance in the Internet infrastructure.  Over
  100,000 commercial Internet customers run BSD operating systems on more
  than 2,000,000 BSD-powered servers. It is estimated that nine out of 10
  Internet Service Providers (ISPs)  and Network Service Providers (NSPs)
  as well as 15 percent of all Internet sites run BSD systems.  BSD
  operating systems are also embedded in innovative Internet appliances
  from Intel, IBM, Lucent, F5 Labs, Hitachi and many others.</p>

<p>BSDI also announced that Yahoo! Inc. will take an equity interest in
  the new company.  BSDI will leverage the equity interest to execute on
  its plan to build a bridge between open source innovation and commercial
  requirements.  The equity position will be used to grow BSDI's presence
  as a leading provider of the most advanced Internet operating systems
  for the Internet infrastructure.</p>

<p>BSDI intends to form a united front for the BSD operating systems.  The
  company will deliver, support and enhance both BSD/OS and FreeBSD.  BSDI
  and the FreeBSD Project are jointly evaluating the technology and market
  requirements for merging parts of the code bases for the two operating
  systems.</p>

<h3>The New BSDI's Leadership</h3>

<p>"BSD technologies have evolved from a long history of advanced
  computing at the core of the Internet," said Dr. Marshall Kirk
  McKusick, BSDI's chairman of the board.  "The new BSDI will further
  enrich the popular BSD computing platform, which is already widely
  deployed throughout the world."  McKusick was a founding member of the
  University of California at Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group
  (CSRG) and is widely acknowledged as a key early contributor to the open
  source movement.</p>

<p>To drive the new BSDI's vision, roadmap and continued profitable
  growth, Gary J.  Johnson has been appointed chief executive officer.
  Johnson is an experienced technology executive who has served in a
  variety of senior management, sales, marketing and operations capacities
  with leading Silicon Valley companies including Tandem Computers
  (Compaq), Convergent Technologies (Unisys) and SCO.  Johnson most
  recently served as president of ClickService Software, a leading
  provider of e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM)
  software.</p>

<p>"Innovation in the operating systems arena relies heavily on work in
  the open source community," said Johnson. "To date, Linux suppliers,
  such as Red Hat Software and VA Linux, have captured impressive
  attention for the open source approach to development.  At the core of
  the Internet, however, BSD technologies are pervasive. The new BSDI will
  be working closely with the open source community to ensure that
  advanced BSD Internet operating systems and platforms continue to meet
  the ever-increasing demands for Internet servers, applications,
  appliances and other elements vital to the Internet infrastructure."</p>

<p>In addition to his current responsibilities, Mike Karels, BSDI's vice
  president of engineering and the former chief system architect and
  principal programmer for the University of California at Berkeley's
  CSRG, plans to join the architectural team for the FreeBSD Project.
  Karels, who replaced Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy at the CSRG,
  is recognized as one of the world's foremost developers of Unix
  internals and TCP/IP networking software.</p>

<p>"BSD technologies have contributed to Yahoo!'s continued success by
  offering the reliability and level of service necessary to ensure the
  availability and scalability we need to keep Yahoo! up and running
  around the clock regardless of increasing user demand," said David Filo,
  co-founder and Chief Yahoo, Yahoo!  Inc.</p>

<h3>BSDI Continues To Deliver BSD/OS And FreeBSD;  Expands And Accelerates
  FreeBSD Open Source Initiatives</h3>

<p>The new BSDI will sell and support FreeBSD, BSD/OS, BSDI Internet Super
  Server and value-added BSD product lines through its worldwide sales
  channels to Internet infrastructure providers, appliance developers and
  business users.  BSDI will offer commercially supported BSD operating
  systems and related applications, Internet appliance platforms,
  technical support and services, open source software development, and
  consulting services. The company will deliver its BSD Internet and
  networking technologies on leading microprocessor platforms, including
  Intel, SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC and StrongARM.</p>

<p>BSDI will continue to develop, enhance and distribute BSD/OS and
  FreeBSD according to the terms of the business-friendly, unencumbered
  Berkeley software license, which encourages development for open source
  software projects, embedded systems, specialized applications,
  information appliances and other operating system-enabled products.</p>

<p>BSDI will expand and accelerate Walnut Creek CDROM's FreeBSD open
  source initiatives by sharing BSD/OS technical innovations with the
  FreeBSD Project and by providing this open source project with
  operational and technical support, marketing and funding.  BSDI will
  continue to distribute packaged versions of FreeBSD and also plans to
  develop value-added products based on FreeBSD as well as to provide
  technical support, consulting services, educational services and
  training for FreeBSD customers.  These steps are expected to promote and
  invigorate the BSD open source computing movement.  The FreeBSD Project
  develops the popular FreeBSD operating system and aggregates and
  integrates contributed software from more than 5,000 developers
  worldwide.</p>

<h3>Internet and Open Source Leaders Support The New BSDI</h3>

<p>"We are delighted that BSDI is backing the FreeBSD open source
  community," said Jordan Hubbard, chief evangelist and co-founder of the
  FreeBSD Project. "The new BSDI has considerable expertise in
  commercializing, maintaining, distributing and supporting the world's
  most advanced Internet operating systems. We are excited and greatly
  looking forward to partnering with BSDI's chief developers, especially
  Mike Karels and other original members of UC Berkeley's CSRG, to
  accelerate operating system, networking and Internet innovation."</p>

<p>"Open source operating systems like BSD offer better technology and
  more choices to the customer," said Eric Raymond, president of the Open
  Source Initiative. "I expect BSDI to prove yet again that the open
  source and business communities can really to do great things together,
  driving the industry forward as dramatically as the Internet."</p>

<p>"Our research shows that BSD and Linux will increase their share of
  enterprise servers by between 100 percent and 500 percent over the next
  two years in the fundamental applications that run U.S. business," said
  Dave Trowbridge, senior analyst at Survey.com. "This new company will
  help ensure that BSD gets its place in the sun, which its rich heritage
  and solid technical foundations deserve."</p>

<h3>About the Berkeley Software Distribution Operating System</h3>

<p>Berkeley Software Distribution operating system technologies were
  originally developed from 1979 to 1992 by the Computer Systems Research
  Group (CSRG) at the University of California at Berkeley.
  Berkeley-derived operating system and networking technologies are at the
  heart of most modern Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Today,
  virtually every major Internet infrastructure provider uses BSD
  operating systems.  BSD operating system technologies are used by
  leading mission-critical network computing environments and are embedded
  in Internet appliance platforms that require advanced Internet
  functionality, reliability and security.</p>

<h3>About the FreeBSD Project</h3>

<p>FreeBSD is a popular open source operating system developed by the
  FreeBSD Project and its worldwide team, consisting of more than 5,000
  developers funneling their work to 185 "committer" developers. It is
  available free of charge from ftp.FreeBSD.org and also distributed as a
  shrink-wrap software product through CompUSA, Fry's, Borders, Ingram,
  FreeBSDmall.com and others.  FreeBSD includes thousands of ported
  applications, including the most popular Web, Internet and E-mail
  applications.  FreeBSD is distributed under the Berkeley Software
  Distribution license, which means that it can be copied and modified
  freely. For more information about the FreeBSD Project, visit <a
  href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/">www.FreeBSD.org</a>.</p>

<h3>About Walnut Creek CDROM</h3>

<p>Walnut Creek CDROM was founded in 1991 and began publishing Linux
  software in 1992, and BSD software in 1993.  The company has a long
  history of working closely with the free software community and
  providing funding, staffing and other resources for open source
  projects.  Walnut Creek CDROM publishes numerous software titles,
  including FreeBSD and Slackware, the most BSD-like version of Linux.</p>

<p>About Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI)</p>

<p>Leading BSD developers founded Berkeley Software Design, Inc. in 1991
  to commercialize BSD technologies and continue the Berkeley Unix
  tradition of robust, reliable and extremely secure Internet operating
  systems for network computing. By merging Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
  and Walnut Creek CDROM, BSDI becomes the world's leading supplier of
  advanced Internet operating systems for the Internet infrastructure.
  Contact BSDI at <a href="mailto:info@BSDI.com">info@BSDI.com</a> or at
  <a href="http://www.BSDI.com/">www.BSDI.com</a> or call 1-719-593-9445
  (toll free: 1-800-800-4273).</p>

<h3># # #</h3>

<p>BSD is a registered trademark and BSD/OS and BSDI are trademarks of
  Berkeley Software Design, Inc. Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are registered
  trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All trademarks mentioned in this document are
  the property of their respective owners.</p>

<p>Contact:<br>
Kevin Rose<br>
BSDI<br>
801-553-8166<br>
<a href="mailto:kgr@bsdi.com">kgr@bsdi.com</a></p>

<p>Jordan Hubbard<br>
FreeBSD Project<br>
925-691-2863<br>
<a href="mailto:jkh@FreeBSD.org">jkh@FreeBSD.org</a></p>

<p>Brigid Fuller<br>
ZNA Communications<br>
831-425-1581<br>
<a href="mailto:brigid@zna.com">brigid@zna.com</a></p>

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