Information about History Of Free Software
This is a timeline-style look at how free software has evolved and existed from its inception.
Other examples were large user groups such as that of the IBM 701, whose user group was called SHARE, and that of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), whose user group was called DECUS.
Software was produced largely by academics and corporate researchers working in collaboration and was not itself seen as a commodity. Operating systems, such as early versions of UNIX, were widely distributed and maintained by the community of users. Source code, the human-readable version of software, was distributed with software because users frequently modified the software themselves to fix bugs, or add new functionality. Thus in this era, software was principally free software, not because of any concerted effort by software users or developers, but rather because software was developed by the user community.
Early versions of UNIX were distributed at no cost, however, these versions did not come with permission to redistribute or to distribute modified versions, and were thus not free software.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, companies began routinely imposing restrictions on programmers through copyright. Sometimes this was because companies were now making money from proprietary software.
Bill Gates signaled the change of the times in 1976 when he wrote his now-famous Open Letter to Hobbyists, sending out the message that what hackers call "sharing" is, in his words, "stealing".
Some free software developed before 1983, but which continued to be used for a long time afterward includes TeX and SPICE.[2]
In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a complete operating system free from constraints on use of its source code. Particular incidents that motivated this include a case where a printer wouldn't work and its users couldn't fix the problem because the source code was withheld from them[3]. The final impetus, however, for the GNU project and its manifesto was a disagreement between Stallman and Symbolics, Inc. over Stallman's access to changes Symbolics had made to a program he wrote.
Soon after the launch, he coined the term "free software" and founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the concept and a free software definition was published in February 1986.
In 1989, the first version of the GNU General Public License was published. A slightly updated version 2 was published in 1991.
In 1989, some GNU developers formed the company Cygnus Solutions.[4]
The GNU project's kernel, later called "GNU Hurd", was continually delayed, but most other components were completed by 1991. Some of these, especially the GNU Compiler Collection, had become market leaders in their own right.
In 1992, the Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds the previous year, was released as free software. The combination of the kernel with components from GNU and elsewhere, such as a toolchain and shell, came to be known as Linux, and was the first complete free software operating system.
In March 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation released most of the code base for its popular Netscape Communicator suite under a free software licence which they wrote: the Netscape Public License. This software package became Mozilla and produced the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The licence of the Mozilla suite was later changed to a tri-license including the GNU GPL.
In August 1999, Sun Microsystems released the StarOffice office suite as free software under the GNU General Public License. The free software version was renamed OpenOffice.org, and coexists with StarOffice.
In 2007, Sun Microsystems announced that they would be releasing their Java platform under the GNU General Public License.
The free software community
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Before 1983
Software communities that can now be compared with today's free software community existed for a long time before the free software movement and the term "free software" have existed. According to Richard Stallman, the software sharing community at MIT existed for "many years" before he got involved in 1971.[1]Other examples were large user groups such as that of the IBM 701, whose user group was called SHARE, and that of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), whose user group was called DECUS.
Software was produced largely by academics and corporate researchers working in collaboration and was not itself seen as a commodity. Operating systems, such as early versions of UNIX, were widely distributed and maintained by the community of users. Source code, the human-readable version of software, was distributed with software because users frequently modified the software themselves to fix bugs, or add new functionality. Thus in this era, software was principally free software, not because of any concerted effort by software users or developers, but rather because software was developed by the user community.
Early versions of UNIX were distributed at no cost, however, these versions did not come with permission to redistribute or to distribute modified versions, and were thus not free software.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, companies began routinely imposing restrictions on programmers through copyright. Sometimes this was because companies were now making money from proprietary software.
Bill Gates signaled the change of the times in 1976 when he wrote his now-famous Open Letter to Hobbyists, sending out the message that what hackers call "sharing" is, in his words, "stealing".
Some free software developed before 1983, but which continued to be used for a long time afterward includes TeX and SPICE.[2]
Beginnings of GNU and FSF (1983-1990)
In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a complete operating system free from constraints on use of its source code. Particular incidents that motivated this include a case where a printer wouldn't work and its users couldn't fix the problem because the source code was withheld from them[3]. The final impetus, however, for the GNU project and its manifesto was a disagreement between Stallman and Symbolics, Inc. over Stallman's access to changes Symbolics had made to a program he wrote.
Soon after the launch, he coined the term "free software" and founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the concept and a free software definition was published in February 1986.
In 1989, the first version of the GNU General Public License was published. A slightly updated version 2 was published in 1991.
In 1989, some GNU developers formed the company Cygnus Solutions.[4]
The GNU project's kernel, later called "GNU Hurd", was continually delayed, but most other components were completed by 1991. Some of these, especially the GNU Compiler Collection, had become market leaders in their own right.
Linux (1991-)
- See also: GNU/Linux naming controversy
In 1992, the Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds the previous year, was released as free software. The combination of the kernel with components from GNU and elsewhere, such as a toolchain and shell, came to be known as Linux, and was the first complete free software operating system.
The Free BSDs (1993-)
Meanwhile, the lawsuit ended and in 1993 FreeBSD and NetBSD were released as free software, both derived from 386BSD. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in 1995. Other newer forks also exist.The DotCom years (late 1990s)
In the mid to late 90s, when many website-based companies were starting up, free software became a popular choice for web servers. Apache HTTP Server became the most used web server software - a title that still holds as of 2007. Systems based on a common "stack" of software with the Linux kernel at the base, Apache providing web services, the MySQL database engine for data storage, and the PHP programming language binding it all together, came to be known as LAMP systems.In March 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation released most of the code base for its popular Netscape Communicator suite under a free software licence which they wrote: the Netscape Public License. This software package became Mozilla and produced the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The licence of the Mozilla suite was later changed to a tri-license including the GNU GPL.
In August 1999, Sun Microsystems released the StarOffice office suite as free software under the GNU General Public License. The free software version was renamed OpenOffice.org, and coexists with StarOffice.
In 2007, Sun Microsystems announced that they would be releasing their Java platform under the GNU General Public License.
Free software laws (2000-)
Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez's presidency, implemented a free software law in January 2006. Directive 3.390 mandated all government agencies to migrate to free software over a two year period [5].See also
- History of the Linux kernel
- History of Mozilla Application Suite
- History of software engineering
- List of liberated software
References
1. ^ The GNU Project (essay). Retrieved on 2007-06-19. “in 1971, I became part of a software-sharing community that had existed for many years |
2. ^ A brief history of spice |.
3. ^ Talk transcript where Stallman tells the printer story|.
4. ^ Michael Tiemann. Future of Cygnus Solutions, An Entrepreneur's Account.
5. ^ Free software liberates Venezuela, Free Software Magazine n°10, 2006-02-08 (English)
2. ^ A brief history of spice |.
3. ^ Talk transcript where Stallman tells the printer story|.
4. ^ Michael Tiemann. Future of Cygnus Solutions, An Entrepreneur's Account.
5. ^ Free software liberates Venezuela, Free Software Magazine n°10, 2006-02-08 (English)
External links
- Software Is for Sharing, Time Magazine, By Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Jul 30, 1984
- Richard Stallman speaking about free software and the GNU project in 1986, Sweden
- David A. Wheeler on the history of free software, from his "Look at the numbers!" paper
- The Daemon, the GNU, and the Penguin, by Peter Salus
- Documents about the BSD lawsuit that lead to 386BSD and then FreeBSD
- Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (January 1999)
- The history of Cygnus solutions, the largest free software company of the early 90s
Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things.
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The free software community
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The free software movement is a new social movement which aims to protect the rights of users to access and modify software. Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture, Richard Stallman is widely credited with launching the movement in
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Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms",[1] is a software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project[3]
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing 32 academic departments,[3]
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The IBM 701, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was announced to the public on April 29, 1952, and was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer[1]. Its business computer siblings were the IBM 702 and IBM 650.
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SHARE Inc. is a volunteer-run user group for IBM mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users. It evolved into a forum for exchanging technical information about programming languages, operating systems, database systems, and user experiences for
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Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC. (This acronym was frequently officially used by Digital itself,[1] but the official name was always DIGITAL.
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DECUS is an independent association of users of Hewlett-Packard and HP Partners. The membership association, registered in Munich, Germany, acts as part of the worldwide Association of Hewlett-Packard User Groups in Germany and Austria.
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Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy.
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source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements and/or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language.
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Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things.
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Proprietary software (also called non-free software or closed-source software) is software with restrictions on using, copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietor.
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William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955[1]) is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.
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The Open Letter to Hobbyists was an open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant copyright infringement taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his
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Tex may refer to:
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- Tex (unit), a unit of measure for the linear mass density of fibers
- TeX, a typesetting system created by Donald Knuth
- Tau Epsilon Chi high school sorority
People
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SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) is a general purpose analog circuit simulator. It is a powerful program that is used in IC and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.
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The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. It initiated the GNU operating system, software development for which began in January 1984. GNU is a recursive acronym that stands for "GNU's Not Unix".
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Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms",[1] is a software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project[3]
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The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. It initiated the GNU operating system, software development for which began in January 1984. GNU is a recursive acronym that stands for "GNU's Not Unix".
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The GNU Manifesto was written by Richard Stallman and published in March 1985 in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools[1] as an explanation and definition of the goals of the GNU Project, and to call for participation and support.
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Symbolics is a privately held company that acquired the assets of the now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc. and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.
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History
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Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things.
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded on October 4, 1985 [1] by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement ("free" as in "freedom"), and in particular the GNU Project.
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The Free Software Definition is a definition published by Free Software Foundation (FSF) for what constitutes free software. The earliest known publication of the definition was in the February 1986 edition[1] of the now-discontinued GNU's Bulletin publication of FSF.
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GNU General Public License
Author: Free Software Foundation
Version: 3
Copyright on the license: Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Publication date: 29 June 2007
OSI approved: Yes
Debian approved: Yes
Free Software:
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Author: Free Software Foundation
Version: 3
Copyright on the license: Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Publication date: 29 June 2007
OSI approved: Yes
Debian approved: Yes
Free Software:
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Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software. Its tagline was: Making free software affordable.
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GNU Hurd (usually referred to as the Hurd) is a free software computer operating system kernel, released under the GNU General Public License. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation.
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The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of compilers produced for various programming languages by the GNU Project. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain, and as well as being the official compiler of the GNU system, GCC has been adopted as the
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The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute between members of the free and open source software community relating to the normative branding of the computer operating systems commonly referred to as Linux.
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