Re: [ox-en] Fwd: Open Source vs. open source vs Free Software...
- From: "Nadav Har'El" <nyh math.technion.ac.il>
- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 01:16:53 +0200
It used to be that Open Source == GNU Public License way back when in the dark
ages (mid-1980's to early 1990's).
I don't agree (see below why).
Then along came Linux, which sort of coopted Open Source away from GNU &
Richard Stallman, who then came up with Free Software, to differentiate
himself (again) from everyone else.
There has been open source software for much longer than the 4 years since
Eric Raymond et al. started the Open Source Initiative.
I think even before the new slew of "open source licences", the GPL already
stood out. First, the BSD and X licenses already exist for a long time. But
more importantly, in the 80s there existed a fair amount of commercial
software that came with source code (a "source license"). You were allowed
to read the code, change it for your needs (if you want), but not to
redistributed the code (modified or not). This was more typical in large
mainframe codes, not in PC programs.
An excellent example of this was AT&T's Unix, which was distributed with
source to some places (such as AT&T itself and universities like Berkeley).
When I learned Unix, in Bell Labs in the mid 80s (I was a kid back then),
I had access to the entire source code of Unix, just like people have on
Linux now, and it was an excellent resource for better understanding Linux.
I remember fixing tar to better recover from damaged floppies, adding new
commands to the Basic interpreter, and adding "function keys" to the terminal
emulator, for example.
Of course, having commercial open-source software like that was a form
of entrapment. Just look at what happened to the BSD guys at Berkeley.
They had access to the AT&T Unix source code, and improved on it. Anybody
who had AT&T Unix's source license could install Berkeley's patches. But
when AT&T Unix was no longer popular, Berkeley could not simply publish
their BSD distribution, because it contained a lot of proprietary AT&T
code that they "took for granted" (because it was open source). It took
them about 10 years (if I remember correctly) before they could rewrite
every piece of old AT&T code, and finally publish freeBSD (and its variants).
By that time, of course, Linux has already existed and got a head start.
[I hope I got the timeline correct - please correct me if I'm wrong]
--
Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, Dec 19 2001, 4 Tevet 5762
nyh math.technion.ac.il |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |The space between my ears was
http://nadav.harel.org.il |intentionally left blank.
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