www.nr.no 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$oft» 3 Provocation I Microsoft invented the PC, then some fanatics destroyed business by promoting FOSS. 4 Provocation II The first computers were too complicated. Then the Computer Scientists made things work and invented FOSS. However, Micro$oft chose a different business model and created a closed world ... 5 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 ▪ Bill Gates: «Business @ the speed of thought», Penguin, 1999. ▪ Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, 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 ... www.nr.no 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 ► c. 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 www.nr.no FOSS Example Projects www.nr.no History – short version ... ► 1984 – Richard Stallman – Free Software Foundation (FSF) (www.fsf.org), 1985 ▪ to develop «free» version of a UNIX operating system ▪ 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 www.nr.no 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 Eric S. Raymond www.nr.no www.nr.no St. iGNUcius – Richard M. Stallman Jolitz – BSD Unix port ☺ Slackware, DLD, SLS (Softlanding), RedHat, S.u.S.E, … Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu Linux-distributions 1999 – Open Source / The Cathedral & The Bazaar HURD (GNU) did not arrive ... (GNU) HURD (Tannenbaum) Minix – Linux 1991: Linus Torvalds 1991: William and Lynne – OpenBSD – netBSD FreeBSD ◦ ◦ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ 8. The Great Web Explosion The Early Free Unixes Free Early The The FOSS Trinity ► ► Historical Notes (2) Linus Torvalds Linus RMS ► Richard M. Stallman ► Click to add an outline ► Inventor of emacs ► Against commercial lab culture ► GNU (operating system + tools) ► Copyleft www.nr.no 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 ... www.nr.no What about these ? www.nr.no Click to add title 20 @ – End of Part I www.nr.no.