Mac281 Open Source software

MAC281MAC281

free | open source | free | open source | propriety | softwarepropriety | software

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Overview

• Free Software and Open Source software philosophies

• Origins of Unix

• Code and control

• Linux

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Free Software philosophy

• Working towards making all software free of intellectual property restrictions

• Ethical issue

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Open Source philosophy

• Similar goals; different approach

• Focus on economic and technical merits of making source code freely available

• Practical issue

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Propriety (closed) software

• Microsoft

• Apple?

• Google?

5See http://havemacwillblog.com/2009/02/28/10-ways-that-microsoft-blocks-desktop-linux/

The Free Software Movement

• Headed by the Free Software Foundation– http://www.fsf.org/

• “free as in speech, not free as in beer”• Freedom to:

– run the program for any reason– study and modify the source code– redistribute the source– share any modifications you make – http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

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The Free Software Movement

• GNU: – General Public License (GPL)

• Once a program is ‘opened’ all spin-offs must remain open.– http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

• Cause of some disagreement with Open Source advocates

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Open Source Software Movement • Headed by the Open Source Initiative

– http://www.opensource.org/

• Exists solely to gain support for open source software – i.e. ready-to-run program + the source code is

available

• Various forms of licensing

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Same difference?

• “We disagree with the open source camp on the basic goals and values, but their views and ours lead in many cases to the same practical behavior—such as developing free software. As a result, people from the free software movement and the open source camp often work together on practical projects such as software development”– Richard Stallman, 2007,

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

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Origins

• ‘In the beginning was the command line’ (Neale, 1999)

• 1952: IBM 701• $15,000 per month to

hire

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Origins

• Business purchases• 1953: IBM 705• $1.6 million

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Origins

• IBM 704• 80,000 lines of code

to process radar images (Weber: 2004: 21)

• All software had to been purposefully written

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Problems

• No compilers

• No Software Development Kits (SDK)

• Enter PACT: Project for the Advancement of Coding Techniques

• Created a shared set of tools

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Problems

• Software engineers saw themselves as craftspeople, artists; oversaw complete projects

• 1950s: Fordist business management techniques transformed working practices

• Engineers pigeonholed into specific minor roles; fragmented

• Software development slowed

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UNICS

• 1969: Ken Thompson spent a month working on a PDP-7 and created uniplexed information and computing services

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UNIX

• A modular system

• Small and simple

• Combinations

• Adaptable

• Visible source code

• Cheap licence

• No support

• Community grew around it

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History

• For more info see:• http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/history_time

line.html

• http://www.computerhope.com/history/unix.htm

• http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/

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Homebrew Computer Club

• 1970s: Amateur enthusiasts

• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

• Regular newsletters

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Homebrew Computer Club

• 1975: Bill Gates angry about HCC freely sharing his BASIC OS

• He saw software as a lucrative and closed industry

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1980s

• Microsoft and propriety systems dominated

• Code being locked down seen as the norm

• Microserfs?

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Open source software today

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Code

• Lessig, 2006: The power to regulate our behaviour

• Windows 7 Starter Edition: maximum of 3 apps open at once

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Code

• Stallman, 2002: Microsoft's OOXML ‘open standard’ not actually open

• http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Unix and Linux

• 1990s: Linus Torvalds built Linux• Adopted the GNU GPL• Multiple offshoots (eg Apache,

MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python, etc)• Open code = OS diversity:

– Ubuntu– Debian– Fedora– Red Hat

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Different ways to license ideas

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Operating System market shareMarch 2011 [source]

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The UK success of Google Android

• Wk15 of 2010: Android handsets = 12.3% of long-term phone contracts

• 37.6% of total mobile market

• 63.9% of contract market

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Open data?

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Openness = transparency?

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Summary• A closed/propriety world is not guaranteed (cf Zittrain,

2008)

• There are many people developing software with the philosophy that technology can be a fantastically enabling tool for improving society.

• If technology can be improved, then it should.

• There shouldn’t be restrictive barriers to improving

technology or limitations on knowledge sharing34

Questions• What are the benefits of open source software to:

– Schools– Enterprises– Government

• Can you see any disadvantages?• How important is an open source platform to big

media companies entering new markets (eg Google Android)?

• Bill Gates famously compared Open Source software and patents to communism. Why?

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Selected sources

• Garret Birkel, 2004, ‘The Command Line in 2004’, http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html

• Robin Bloor, 2009, ‘10 Tactics Microsfot Uses To Crush The Linux PC’, http://havemacwillblog.com/2009/02/28/10-ways-that-microsoft-blocks-desktop-linux/

• Free Software Foundation, 2007, ‘The Free Software Definition’, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

• GNU, 2007, ‘GNU General Public License’, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

• Lawrence Lessig, 2006, Code version 2.0, New York: Basic Books.

• Richard Stallman, 2007, ‘We Can Put an End to Word Attachments’, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

• Richard Stallman, 2007, ‘Why “Free Software” is better than “Open Source”’, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

• Neal Stephenson, 1999, ‘In the Beginning was the Command Line’, http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

• Steven Weber, 2004, The Success of Open Source, Harvard, Harvard University Press.

• Jonathan Zittrain, 2008, The Future of the Internet – And How To Stop It, London: Yale University Press

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