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History of open sourceIntro

As in all fields of study, also open-source software has its heroes and success stories.Moreover, these success stories and greatest accomplishments can be personified. In this

study we tell the short history of open-source software in light of its key figures and their

interesting and colorful backgrounds.

Early historyIn the 1!"s and 1#"s almost all software was free and source code was distributed withthe binary. $sers were able to fi% bugs and modify the code for their needs. Much of the

software was developed by hardware manufacturers and the software development costswere included in hardware prices, so software was not seen as separate product to sell.

However, in 1#! I&M stopped publishing the source code and soon after the laws andcopyrights were changed so that the distribution of the programs without a permission was

illegal. 'he users could no longer modify the code themselves and became dependent on thesoftware companies.

The rise of the open source community - 1970 and 1980In the early seventies the open source community began to form and the early versions of $(I) were distributed. *ne of the first of the software communities was formed

at MI'. +ichard tallman has reported that when he oined it in 11, it has e%isted for

 /many years0.In the late 1"s the hacker culture that tallman thrived began to fragment. hen

software products grew in comple%ity, more and more money was re2uired to support theincreasing development e%penses. A separate software industry started to emerge. In the

1"s and 13"s it became the norm that you had to pay for the software you wanted to

use and you did not get the source code with it. 4ven the infamous Microsoft man &ill 5atesaddressed the open source /hobbyists0 by writing them a funny letter where he told that

what hackers called /sharing0 was, in his words, /stealing0. 4vidently this was &ill6s first andlast contribution to the open source software.

'o fight against the commercialism +ichard tallman launched the 5($ 7roect in 138 towrite a complete operating system free from constraints on the use of its source code. He

also contributed to many necessary tools we are still using, including 4macs, 599, gdb andgmake. :uring his work tallman also populari;ed the concept of copyleft and wrote the

first version of the 5($ 5eneral 7ublic

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Makes you write programs that don6t ust react to your needs,

but actually anticipate them. *r at least pretend to.?

8. Hubris >Makes you write >and maintain? programs that other people won6t

want to say bad things about.?

Boom of Linux early 1990s9heck out his cool home page? Mr.

http://www.effi.org/patentit/patents_torvalds_cox.htmlhttp://www.jwz.org/http://www.effi.org/patentit/patents_torvalds_cox.htmlhttp://www.jwz.org/

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Jawinski has significant contributions to the free software proects such as )4macs, Mo;illaand early version of (etscape (avigator. (owadays Mo;illa =oundation maintains Mo;illa

=irefo% browser, which is one of the most popular web browsers.Jawinski is not working with Mo;illa or open source anymore, because he got upset by the

fact that Mo;illa refused to open the source code for the Mo;illa browser and others decidedto rewrite it. o, he decided to resignate and is currently the owner of :(A 9athedral model, in

which source code is available with each software release and &a;aar model, in which thecode is developed over the Internet in view of the public?. His book was one of the final

pushes needed by (etscape 9ommunications 9orporation to release the source code for

(etscape 9ommunicator and start the Mo;illa proect.

+aymond is also one of the founders of the *pen ource Initiative, organi;ation dedicated to

promoting open source software. *I is trying to promote free software purely fromtechnical point of view, forgetting all philosophy and morali;ing that are integral part of 

tallman6s =ree oftware =oundation6s agenda. 'his way *I tries to make free softwaremore attractive for companies. &ecause of that, +aymond has had a number of disputes

with people in the free software movement.

:uring the 1"s L1 billion? and it has provided a well-publici;ed e%ample of a company built on

open source principles being ac2uired by a maor company. 'he results have been 2uitedisappointing however. un, or actually *racle nowadays, has been unable to keep the most

important developers on board and many forks have materiali;ed, including :ri;;le that is

the most distinctive MyK< fork.

+ecently the open source development, both the social and technical factors, have also

become a maor academic topic. 'he research into open source software investigates thewhole field from different perspectives. I6m sure we6ll hear more about these from the

course organi;ers.

http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.htmlhttp://www.dnalounge.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiserhttp://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.htmlhttp://www.dnalounge.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser

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History of free and open source software *pen ource *pen ource Initiative

omments A decent set of key eventsNpeople accompanied with amusing triviaO more of the former

would have been welcome.

5reat storyP

- well structured

- key dates, figures and events are included

- 2uite detailed >/had a white cat called Mithrandir / B??

- lots of funny staff >thanks for the videos, enoyed them much?

ome small improvements.

- a sentence or two about /not free?, "s >struggle for freedom?,3"s >some good results?, "s >boom?, nowadays>boom continues?. ould be nice also to

see some forecasts.

'hanks for a nice articleP

Danuhi

'he article provides a narrow and 2uite subective view about the history of *.

'he /main0 people behind * are chosen 2uite subectively and they6re described more

or less as the heroes 5iven the subect, it would6ve been hard to make a truly obective all-around guide for thehistory

'here6s some good thoughts about the overall progress that happened during eachdecade. 'hese thoughts could be clearer, for instance, at the beginning or the end of each

decade sub-chapter, there could be a brief summary about that time period.

All in all, a very entertaining read. SS

-Atte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open_source_softwarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_sourcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open_source_softwarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_sourcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative