Free Software Movement and Open Source Communities

Free Software Movementand

Open Source CommunitiesGPA 1035

Prepared and Presented by Dr. Haggen So

Released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong Licence

Agenda

• Early Hacker Culture• Richard Stallman• Linus Torvalds and Linux• Eric Raymond, the Cathedral and the Bazaar,

Open Source• Diversity and Conflicts between Free Software

and Open Source• Free/Open Source Software and Software

Industry• Political Implications

History of Software (1)

Early Hacker Culture

MIT AI Lab

CTSS (Compatible Time-sharing System) vs

ITS (Incompatible Time-sharing System)


Access to computers-and anything which might teach you something

about the way the world works

- Should be unlimited and total- Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!


All information should be free


Mistrust Authority-Promote Decentralization


Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as

degrees, age, race or position


You can create art and beauty on a computer


Computers can change your life for the better

Richard M. Stallman

Apple ][+ Clone

Changes in Computer Industry

• Rise of Personal Computers

• Widening of Market – Horizontal Market Possible

• Secrecy and Profitability – Closed Source

Source Code

• Computer Instructions are coded in binary format 00101...

• A more human friendly method to program computer:

/* Hello World program */#include<stdio.h>main(){ printf("Hello World"); }

• Convert source code into binary instructions by a computer compiler

Responses of Richard Stallman

• Release source code that could not be used commercially

• Release source code that must remain freely available -> Software Freedom

• 1983 GNU project, Unix Clone

• 1985 Free Software Foundation, Free as in Free Speech, General Public License (GPL)

Free Software

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Free Software

• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Rise and Fall

• GNU project was very successful, released lots of useful software

• Next step was to implement the "heart" of the operating system – kernel was missing

• People problems – Forking in Emacs, GNU C Compiler and glibc

Android

Android

Linus Torvalds and the Penguin

What book changes your life?

The Next Generation

• Andrew Tanenbaum's "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation“

• He bought a new 386SX PC and Minix

• He, as a new comer, provided an alternative kernel, Linux, v0.01 release in 1992

• Linux was built upon the GNU project and released under GPL

Eric Raymondthe Cathedral and the Bazaar

Open Source

• A late member of the MIT AI Lab community

• Wrote the essay "the Cathedral and the Bazaar", became the standard analysis for mechanism in Open Source collaboration

Eric Raymond

The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Open Source

2 forces

Brooks's Lawvs

Egoless Programming

Linus's Law

"Given enough eyeballs,

all bugs are shallow."

Motivations

Scratch one's itch

ego-boosting for difficult tasks

Community Formation

Metiocracy

Forking

• Open Source and Linux became 'profitable' concepts during the dot com boom

• VA Linux (NASDAQ:LNUX) offered at $30, highest at $320, first day closed at $239.25

• Prediction on Linux taking over the desktop market long overdue

The Open Source and Linux Hype

Diversity and Conflicts

between Free Software

and Open Source

• The web browser company in 90s

• Faced challenge from Microsoft

• Based on the Cathedral and the Bazaar, Open up the source code to fight Microsoft in 1998

• Firefox to reach 25% of global market share end of 2009 -> Success??

Netscape/Mozilla

• Facing business model problem

• Internal software quality problem

• Open Source as Last Resort?

More in-depth Analysis

• Drop in the price of the tools (computer), availability of source code

• Linux in every set-top box and Internet router

• Google powered by Linux

• Example - Operating System in EEEPC

• Software as Service

Commodification of Software

• Who wrote 2.6.20? http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/

• Microsoft and Open Source

Current Situation

http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/

Open source is

an intellectual-property destroyer ...

I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-

property business.

I'm an American; I believe in the American way.

Allchin in 2001:

Linux is a cancer that

attaches itself in an intellectual property sense

to everything it touches

Ballmer(2001) on GPL:

• Openness in computer systems through Open Source

• Commodification lower the IT Barrier

Politicial Implications

• Use Open Source Altivore to fight FBI's surveillance program - Carnivore

• e-Voting and Open Source (Diebold, Sequoia)

Openness in Computer Systems

through Open Source

• InMediaHK reused Coolloud's code, based on Open Source Project Drupal

• Tor as an anti-GFW instrument

Commodification lowers the IT Barrier

Image Credits

Ferdi (2006) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Honeywell-Bull_DPS_7_Mainframe_BWW_March_1990.jpg, released under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg, released under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Derivative 3.0 Licence.

Image Credits

A-giâu (2005) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Taiwanese_Apple_II_clone_Cosmo.jpg, released under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

laihiu (2009)http://www.flickr.com/photos/laihiu/3799300943/in/set-72157621976446710/, released under Creative Commons Attribution Attribution 2.0 Licence.

Image Credits

Android Open Source project (2009) http://developer.android.com/images/system-architecture.jpg, released under Apache 2.0.

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason (2004)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Linus_Torvalds.jpeg, released under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

Image Credits

Larry Ewing <[email protected]>, http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/ using the GIMP.

Russ Nelson (2005) File:Esr.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esr.jpg.

Associated Press. (2004). "Diebold to Settle E-Voting Suit." Wired Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/11/65674.Baker, M. (2006). The Mozilla Project:Past and Future. Open Sources 2.0:The Continuing Evolution. C. DiBona, D. Cooper and M. Stone. Sebastopol, California, O'Reilly.Brooks, F. P. (1995). The mythical man-month : essays on software engineering. Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.Castro, J. (2004). "Ars Technica sits down with Scott Collins from Mozilla.org." Retrieved 26 Jun, 2004, from http://arstechnica.com/etc/linux/collins-interview-1.html.Corbet, J. (2007). "Who wrote 2.6.20?" LWN Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/.Dotzler, A. (2009, 27 Sep 2009). "firefox breaks 24%." Mozillazine Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2009/09/firefox_breaks_24.html.Dugan, S. (2000). "Defanging Carnivore:A security specialist explains why his open-source version of the FBI's snooping technology is a victory for privacy fans." The Salon Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.salon.com/tech/view/2000/09/25/robert_graham/.Free Software Foundation. (2000). "What is Free Software?" Retrieved 21 Jun 2000, from http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

References

Greene, T. C. (2001). "Ballmer: "Linux is a cancer" Contaminates all other software with Hippie GPL rubbish." The Register Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/.Heilemann, J. (2000). "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth." Wired Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/microsoft.html.Japan, M. (2007). "The History of Firefox and Mozilla: The story of browsers dating back to the dawn of the Web." Retrieved 6 Oct, 2009, from http://www.foxkeh.com/downloads/history/history-foxkeh.pdf.Kelty, C. M. (2000). Scale and Convention: Programmed Languages in a Regulated America, Mass. Institute of Technology. Leonard, A. (2001). "Life, liberty and the pursuit of free software." The Salon Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2001/02/15/unamerican/.Levy, S. (1984). Hackers: Heroes of The Computer Revolution. Garden City, New York, Anchor Press/Doubleday.Lucas, G. (2004). "State bans electronic balloting in 4 counties:Touch-screen firm accused of 'reprehensible,' illegal conduct." San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/01/MNG036EAF91.DTL.

References

Open Source Initiative. (2003). "The Open Source Definition." Retrieved 30 Jan, 2003, from http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php.Raymond, E. S. (2000). "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." Retrieved 30 May, 2000, from http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar.html.Raymond, E. S. (2000). "Homesteading the Noosphere.". Retrieved 22 Dec, 2000, from http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/.Torvalds, L. and D. Diamond (2001). Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. New York, TEXERE.Weinberg, G. M. (1971). The psychology of computer programming. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold.Williams, S. (2002). Free as in Freedom:Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software. Sebastopol, California, O'Reilly Media.Zetter, K. (2003). "Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting." Wired Retrieved 4 Nov, 2003, from http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,61045,00.html.Zetter, K. (2004). "Diebold May Face Criminal Charges." Wired Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/04/63191.Zetter, K. (2009). "Voting Machine Company Agrees to Hand Over Source Code." Wired Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/voting-machine-company-agrees-to-hand-over-source-code/.小兔黑黑 . (2008). " 微軟－創意的破壞者 ." InMediaHK Retrieved 10 Oct, 2009, from http://www.inmediahk.net/node/1000762.

References