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Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Part I

presented by Wolfgang Leister

INF 5780 – Høstsemester 2009 Ifi – Universitetet i Oslo

Some thoughts about FLOSS

www.nr.no FOSS is not about «Linux vs. Micro$oft»

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Provocation I

Microsoft invented the PC, then some fanatics destroyed business by promoting FOSS.

4 Provocation II

The first computers were too complicated. Then the Computer Scientists made things work and invented FOSS. However, Micro$oft chose a different business model and created a closed world ...

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Culture, Models, Literature of the «other culture»

▪ Douglas Coupland: «Microserfs», HarperCollins Publishers, 1995 (norwegian title: «Microtreller») ▪ James Wallace: «Overdrive», John Wiley & Sons, 1997 ▪ James Wallace and Jim Erickson: «Hard Drive», John Wiley & Sons, 1992 ▪ : «Business @ the speed of thought», Penguin, 1999. ▪ Bill Gates, , Peter Rinearson: «The Road Ahead», Viking-Penguin, 1995 ▪ Jennifer Edstrom, Marlin Eller: «Barbarians Led by Bill Gates», Henry Holt Company, 1998

www.nr.no SIMULA

► Programming language, developed by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard at NR 1961-1967.

► Early 1970-ties: Ca. 250 Installations of SIMULA Compiler (quite good in those days). Sale of compiler licenses – quite expensive.

► 1973: Donald Knuth is interested and wants SIMULA installation in Stanford. NTNF (forskningsrådet) and NR could not afford to give a free license for universities.

► Consequence: SIMULA not introduced at Stanford ...

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FOSS – Definition

► Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. (Source: wikipedia)

► a. Technology ► b. Law ► . Social norms/ culture ► d. Market structures/ organization

www.nr.no Open Source Software / FOSS

► FOSS is software licensed under an agreement that conforms to the Open Source Definition (www.opensource.org) ▪ Access to Source Code ▪ Freedom to Redistribute ▪ Freedom to Modify ▪ Non-Discriminatory Licensing (licensee/product) ▪ Integrity of Authorship ▪ Redistribution in accordance with the Open Source ▪ License Agreement

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FOSS Example Projects

www.nr.no History – short version ...

► 1984 – – Foundation (FSF) (www.fsf.org), 1985 ▪ to develop «free» version of a ▪ GNU Public License (GPL)

► 1994 – Linux 1.0 released under GPL by Linus Torvalds

► 1998 – Open Source Initiative (OSI) / Eric S. Raymond ▪ «Open Source» - www.opensource.org ▪ Certifies and lists open source licenses that conform to the OSD

► Today – Linux OS / Apache / Firefox / OpenOffice / many OSS products are widely used

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Historical Notes (1)

► The Early Hackers ▪ 1960-1970: PDP-machines, jargon file, ARPANET

► The Rise of Unix ▪ 1970-1980: ITS, VAX, Multics, C, Unix (Thompson, Ritchie)

► The End of Elder Days ▪ ~1980 Apple, Motorola 68000, emacs, GNU (Stallman), SUN (Berkeley Unix)

► The Proprietary-Unix Era ▪ AT&T System V, Berkeley BSD, X windows, ▪ IRIX, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, ...

www.nr.no Historical Notes (2)

► The Early Free ▪ HURD (GNU) did not arrive ... ▪ Minix (Tannenbaum) ▪ 1991: Linus Torvalds – Linux ▪ 1991: William and Lynne Jolitz – BSD Unix port ▪ FreeBSD – netBSD – OpenBSD

► 8. The Great Web Explosion ▪ Linux-distributions ◦ Slackware, SLS (Softlanding), S.u.S.E, DLD, RedHat, … ◦ Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu ▪ 1999 – Open Source / The Cathedral & The Bazaar

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The FOSS Trinity ☺

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www.nr.no RMS

► Richard M. Stallman ► Click to add an outline

► Inventor of emacs

► Against commercial lab culture

► GNU (operating system + tools)

► Copyleft

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The Cathedral & The Bazaar

ESR – Eric S. Raymond

► Promoted the term «Open Source» (1998)

www.nr.no Linux

► Linus Torvalds – Helsinki University

► 1991 – Linux

► Now: Employee at Transmeta

Motivations: • Survival • Social Order • Entertainment → Just for fun ...

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What about these ?

www.nr.no Click to add title

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@ – End of Part I

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