2. Early computers came with source
Commercial focus was on hardware
Strong academic influence
Software was not portable
No commercial advantage to restricting
distribution
Each machine vendor needed to develop their
own
'users' and 'developers' were often the same
people
3. We did not call our software “free software”, because that term
did not yet exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from
Another university or a company wanted to port and use a
program, we gladly let them. If you saw someone using an
unfamiliar and interesting program, you could always ask to see
the source code, so that you could read it, change it, or
cannibalize parts of it to make a new program.
(Richard Stallman, The GNU Project)
4.
5. MIT AI Lab
• Strong hacker culture
• Switch to proprietary software in early 80s
• The infamous 'Xerox printer' incident
Richard Stallman
Firm stance on software freedom
Founded GNU project in 1983
Founded FSF in 1985
6. I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a
Program I must share it with other people who like it. I
cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure
agreement or a software license agreement
(Richard Stallman “new UNIX implementation”)
7.
8. Kick-started an explosion in FOSS interest
◦ Pioneered a new style of 'bazaar' development
◦ Built on many existing GNU projects
◦ Drew on existing Minix community
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will
Be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've
already got minix.This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've
enjoyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even
modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to
understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any
comments you might have.
(Linus Torvalds “Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT” 1991)
9. An essay by Eric S. Raymond on software
engineering methods.
The essay contrasts two different free
software development models:
◦ The Cathedral model, in which source code is available
with each software release, but code developed between
releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software
developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as
examples.
◦ The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over
the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus
Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the
inventor of this process.
10. “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow“
◦ the more widely available the source code is for
public testing, scrutiny, and experimentation, the
more rapidly all forms of bugs will be discovered.
In contrast, Raymond claims that an
inordinate amount of time and energy must
be spent hunting for bugs in the Cathedral
model, since the working version of the code
is available only to a few developers.
11. 1. Every good work of software starts by scratching a
developer's personal itch.
2. Good programmers know what to write. Great
ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).
3. Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.
4. If you have the right attitude, interesting
problems will find you.
5. When you lose interest in a program, your last
duty to it is to hand it off to a competent
successor.
12. 6. Treating your users as co-developers is your
least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and
effective debugging.
7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your
customers.
8. Given a large enough beta-tester and co-
developer base, almost every problem will be
characterized quickly and the fix obvious to
someone.
9. Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot
better than the other way around.
13. 10. If you treat your beta-testers as if they're
your most valuable resource, they will
respond by becoming your most valuable
resource.
11. The next best thing to having good ideas is
recognizing good ideas from your users.
Sometimes the latter is better.
12. Often, the most striking and innovative
solutions come from realizing that your
concept of the problem was wrong.
14. 13. Perfection (in design) is achieved not when
there is nothing more to add, but rather
when there is nothing more to take away.
14. To solve an interesting problem, start by
finding a problem that is interesting to you.
15. development coordinator has a
communications medium at least as good
as the Internet, and knows how to lead
without coercion, many heads are inevitably
better than one.
15. Convince most existing open source and free
software projects to adopt Bazaar-style open
development models.
In 1998 it also provided the final push
for Netscape Communications Corporation to
release the source code for Netscape
Communicator and start the Mozilla project.
16. Free software is the most visible part of a new
economy of commons-based peer production
of information, knowledge, and culture.
This new economy is already under
development. In order to commercialize
FOSS, many companies, Google being the
most successful.
17. ◦ The German City of Munich was amongst the first to
announce its intention to switch from Microsoft
Windows-based operating systems to an open
source implementation of SuSE Linux in March
2003.
◦ Malaysia launched the "Malaysian Public Sector
Open Source Software Program", saving millions on
proprietary software licences till 2008.
◦ In 2005 the Government of Peru voted to adopt
open source across all its bodies.
18. The Department of Information Technology,
Government of India has held a keen interest
in Foss and has formed NRCFOSS(National
Resource Center for Free and Open Source
Software)
The implementing agencies C-DAC, Anna
University, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras.
19. BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions):
◦ Debian based Linux distribution, which supports all
major indian languages
◦ Setting GNU Compiler Collection Resource center at
IIT Bombay
◦ Center of Excellence for mobile internet devices.
◦ Dhvani: TTS conversion software for Indian
language
◦ Hindawi: Programming in native language
◦ GNUKhata: Free Accounting and inventory
management software.
