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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
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FOSS is not about
«Linux vs. Micro$oft»
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Provocation I
Microsoft invented the PC,
then some fanatics
destroyed business
by promoting FOSS.
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Provocation II
The first computers were too complicated.
Then the Computer Scientists made things
work and invented FOSS.
However,
Micro$oft chose a different
business model and created
a closed world ...
5
Culture, Models, Literature
of the «other culture»
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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
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SIMULA
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Programming language, developed by Ole-Johan
Dahl and Kristen Nygaard at NR 1961-1967.
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Early 1970-ties: Ca. 250 Installations of SIMULA
Compiler (quite good in those days). Sale of
compiler licenses – quite expensive.
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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.
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Consequence: SIMULA not introduced at Stanford ...
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FOSS – Definition
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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)
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a.
Technology
b.
Law
c.
Social norms/ culture
d.
Market structures/
organization
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Open Source Software / FOSS
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FOSS is software licensed under an agreement that
conforms to the Open Source Definition
(www.opensource.org)
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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
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History – short version ...
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1984 – Richard Stallman – Free Software Foundation
(FSF) (www.fsf.org), 1985
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to develop «free» version of a UNIX operating system
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GNU Public License (GPL)
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1994 – Linux 1.0 released under GPL by Linus Torvalds
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1998 – Open Source Initiative (OSI) / Eric S. Raymond
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«Open Source» - www.opensource.org
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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)
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The Early Hackers
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The Rise of Unix
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1970-1980: ITS, VAX, Multics, C, Unix (Thompson,
Ritchie)
The End of Elder Days
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1960-1970: PDP-machines, jargon file, ARPANET
~1980 Apple, Motorola 68000, emacs, GNU
(Stallman), SUN (Berkeley Unix)
The Proprietary-Unix Era
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AT&T System V, Berkeley BSD, X windows,
IRIX, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, ...
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Historical Notes (2)
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The Early Free Unixes
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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
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Linux-distributions
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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 ☺
Eric S. Raymond
St. iGNUcius – Richard M. Stallman
Linus Torvalds
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RMS
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Richard M. Stallman
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Inventor of emacs
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Against commercial lab
culture
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GNU (operating system
+ tools)
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Copyleft
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Click to add an outline
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The Cathedral & The Bazaar
ESR – Eric S. Raymond
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Promoted the term
«Open Source» (1998)
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Linux
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Linus Torvalds – Helsinki University
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1991 – Linux
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Now: Employee at Transmeta
Motivations:
• Survival
• Social Order
• Entertainment →
Just for fun ...
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What about these ?
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Click to add title
20
@ – End of Part I
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