| Prev | Next | |
The concept of sharing source code has existed since the early days of the computer. Sharing source code provided programmers the opportunity to learn from others in their field and for products to grow and expand without having to create programs from scratch every time. With hardware serving as the basic profit base, software existed as a commodity, freely shared among programmers. It existed as single purpose tools to run on specific machines. The cost of operating time was such that every clock cycle was squeezed to achieve maximum performance. Software underwent an extensive peer review process and dry runs would be conducted to ensure accuracy of the code prior to every touching a machine.
John Hall, Executive Director of Linux International and Director of Public Relations at VA Linux Systems remembers in 1968 while attending Drexel Institute of Technology that courses were not taught in programming. If you wanted to learn programming, you did so in your own spare time using the limited number of texts and the source code of others. As member of DECUS, DEC's User Society, he had access to the DECUS catalog that maintained a list of freely distributable software for the taking provided you provided the cost of copying to paper tape (Hall).
The increasing availability of processing time and processing power lead to the addition of an operating system to cover many of the functions and services that previously required direct access to the hardware. Companies that developed software found they could earn a profit for the time they spent developing the software. The software became a product unto itself rather than a commodity.
The open-source/free software concept found its return from Richard Stallman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Artificial Intelligence Lab. The lab used a timesharing system called ITS, the Incompatible Timesharing System, that was written in assembler for the PDP-10 (Stallman). Although the software was not called open-source or free software, the source code was available to be modified and improved as necessary by anyone having the skills and gumption to do it. The PDP-10 was one of the most powerful computers of the 1960's and 1970's, but as the 1980's started unfolding, it was unable to keep pace with the technology. When the AI lab purchased a new PDP-10 in 1982, they decided to move to Digital's non-free time sharing system. VAX and the 68020 additionally came with proprietary operating systems that required the signing of a non-disclosure agreement even to receive the executable code. The implications within the software community were staggering as "This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not to help your neighbor. A cooperating community was forbidden. The rule made by the owners of proprietary software was, "If you share with your neighbor, you are a pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to make them."" (Stallman).
Stallman faced a moral choice and determined that he could ill afford to let his community of idea sharing disappear. He resigned from his position at MIT and started the Free Software Foundation based on the principles of sharing ideas and source code. With his initially small staff of programmers, he set out to once again establish a community based on a free operating system. He called this system GNU, a recursive acronym for "GNU's not Unix". The GNU project developed a large array of software utilities primarily based on the Unix environment. Some of the most popular include the text editor Emacs and the GNU C compiler (gcc) with supporting libraries. The greatest advancement to the concept of open-source was not found in its software but in the concept that Stallamn calls "copyleft", a variation on the ideas entrenched within copyright only carrying the opposite goals. He sported this in his GNU Public License (GPL), a software license that guarantees that any software derived from source code protected by the license will remain free and open-source.
Although covering extensive ground in the Unix world, Stallman's dream remained unfulfilled as he still lacked the one key ingredient in making it a reality, a kernel, the very key to any operating system. Work was initially started in his HURD kernel but little progress had been made. Fortunately, a young grad student at the University of Helsinki in Finland was about to solve his dilemma.
The excitement started when the following post appeared on the USENET newsgroup comp.os.minix on October 5th, 1991:
Do you pine for the nice days of Minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on an OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you finding it frustrating when everything works on Minix? No more all-nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just for you.
As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I'm working on a free version of a Minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution. It's just version 0.02 ... but I've successfully run bash, gcc, GNU make, GNU sed, compress, etc. under it. (Welsh, 5)
Linus Torvalds had started Linux as a class project while working on his post-graduate studies at the University of Helsinki. Initially inspired by Andrew Tannenbaum's Minix, he had set out to create a better Minix than Minix for the 80386 processor taking advantage of the CPU's protected mode of operation. Minix was an academic study of the popular Unix operating system but lacked much of the functionality.
Opening his source code to the Internet drew an unprecedented number of developers to the project and quickly the project grew from a young students project to a full fledged operating system. Richard Stallman's GNU Utilities provided much of the foundation for the operating system. Small entrepreneurship opened up providing software bundles using the existing kernel and tools. Names such as Slackware and Red Hatestablished themselves as Linux value added resellers. Linux started becoming feasible enough to function beyond the hobbyist level. These value added resellers provided some of the first business credibility to the as yet unnamed movement that was to become open source software.
Linux was not, and still is not, the only free operating system in town. FreeBSD and 386BSD established themselves early on as open source software operating systems. The key difference between the distributions was the development model. Using Linus's model, they quickly established themselves in a position to assume the x86 server and desktop Unix based leader.
Linux, in its infancy, remained mostly a tool for hackers while the business world continued with developing their proprietary systems. The most dynamic event that brought open source to the headlines, and grab the serious attention of the business world, was Netscape's announcement of its intention to release the source code for its Navigator 5.0. Netscape made this decision facing a decline in market share and losing its apparent battle for browser dominance with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Being the first established organization to revert from closed source practices to open source ones, Netscape credits the writings of Eric S. Raymond, primarily his manifesto The Cathedral and the Bazaar as solidifying their decision to try the open-source model of development. After Netscape made their announcement they contacted Eric Raymond and conducted a strategy session to truly define their still undefined business strategy. Their software development strategy was already defined within Raymond's text. Raymond states, "One thing I heard over and over from their people was a huge sense of relief-- almost gratitude that market conditions had gotten so bad that the could justify doing what they wanted to do anyway." (LJ, p.68). Within the Netscape model, they released the source code for the entire world to peruse, study, and provide patches to. Netscape maintained sole control over what ultimately went into the source code and what did not. They titled the source code release as "Mozilla" and felt their primary advantage would be within the extensive peer review of their code. By continuing to commoditize the http protocol, the organization decided they could posture themselves as a loss leader.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar identifies the differences between the classical software development model where the programming is performed in a "cathedral" setting where the source code is kept vaulted up and protected from the masses. Involvement in the development process becomes left to a chosen few and development stops when the programmers go home. This contrasted with Raymond's bazaar model where the source code is on display for the world to see and critique. Programming, development, and bug-fixes continue on a 24-hour cycle.
Eric S. Raymond, in company with others from the movement, brain-stormed the name open-source at a strategy meeting held in Palo Alto California in attempt to lose the stigma behind "free software" and the Free Software Foundation of Richard Stallman. The Free Software Foundation continually had to confront the term "free" in relation to their software. Did it mean that the software did not cost anything? Did it mean "free to be modified by anyone?" (Raymond, LJ, p.68)
Mozilla and Netscape are considered success stories of the open source movement. The media hype following Netscape's announcement to release the software increased their market share. They were purchased by America Online who later merged with Time-Warner to become the largest media conglomerate in the world. One of AOL/Time-Warner's first actions was to continue to honor its commitment to open-source software and continued its support of Mozilla.
Linux has now defined itself as a superior product in the server community and coupled with Apache, has moved into first position as the most prolific system in the web server environment. In 1998, Microsoft started taking particular note of the Linux operating system and determining the threats it posed to its server and desktop dominance. A leak of an internal Microsoft memo by Vinod Vallipollil defined Microsoft's view of open source software and started to establish the initial strategies they would require to ensure their continued success. Eric Raymond provides commentary on these memos in what is now called the Halloween Documents. The loosely knit community of hacker hobbyists has positioned themselves to compete with the Microsoft software giant. Where other products have failed (IBM's OS/2, Apple Macintosh, Sun's Solaris) in marketing and sales, the open source concept and process models have brought a new level of process that Microsoft is not fully prepared to compete with.
| Prev | Next | |