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ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps
Esther Schindler writes "The Airline Control Program (ACP), introduced by IBM around 1967, predated the term 'open source' by decades. But you may be surprised by how much of its development resembles the FOSS movement today. The ITWorld.com article An Abbreviated History of ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Applications describes what made it special."
This was how it was back in the days, and that is why RMS started GNU and FSF, to keep it that way.
I think you are confusing Open Source with Free Software.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"the ACP programmers I knew spent entirely too much time trying to shove 5K of functionality into a 5K bag. "
I can do that in my sleep!
It was not IBM's DOS that inspired _The Mythical Man Month_. It was IBM's OS.
They cobbled together DOS because OS was so late.
OS is now z/OS.
DOS is now z/VSE.
Open source means the code is available. Nothing else.
What you're looking for is GNU/Freedom.
Open Source Definition
Interesting article to be sure -
However, I'm not sure this really qualifies as OSS or FOSS software. You really couldn't run it on any other system and there was a very closed community of heavy-smoking computer people who were able to run or modify this.
I did find it cool that the article mentioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month -The Mythical Man-Month which I'm reading right now. Funny how different - yet the same - software development is some fourty years later.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
mods: This post is on-topic because its author is old, too! (grumble grumble)
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
There's quite a few more requirements than just having the code be available.
Has slashdot really got to the point where falsehoods like "Open source means the code is available. Nothing else." are modded insightful?
We fought wars over nonsense like that, kid.
CAPTCHA: jackpot. As in, what Microsoft's "Shared Source" provocateurs have hit with people like you.
So says OSI, but they haven't actually managed to establish legal control over the term 'open source', so at best, the definition is contested, at worst, there are multiple meanings.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
There's quite a few more requirements than just having the code be available.
Yes, and those requirements go beyond open source; it's more a definition of free software than open source. While many peopel view open source and free as one and the same I think it's worthwhile to differentiate between the two.
BSD, for example, is an open source project with a license that differs from the above in allowing for proprietary use as well.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Actually there were IBM "clones" after the DOJ forced unbundling of OS and apps from hardware, you could get the code and run it on a number of mainframes that were specifically designed to look like IBMs.
I'm old enough to have been active in this timeframe (you don't have to get off my lawn).
Interestingly there was also a budding OSS type effort in the minicomputer world - mostly with a vendor called Datapoint. There were quite a few apps and utilities that had been developed by end-users whose source was distributed for free by the vendor (or passed along by developers). The architecture was similar to the IBM PC (look here for more details wiki article on Datapoint ) and when the PC arrived the compiler and many apps were ported to that platform. I personally worked on a "Turnkey" system that eventually was ported to the PC using a 3'rd party compiler. I was also an author of some of those early pre-OSS apps, and I ported and distributed them as well.
...carrier dead.....
What the hell is wrong with moderators today? This is not insightful or informative... loufoque make a perfectly valid point. ACP may resemble open source, but it is not open source.
Claiming that the definition of open source does not include redistribution rights is revisionist, if not totally absurd.
Non-advertise clause BSD meets those terms perfectly - http://opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php. You can allow *more* things, you just can't allow *less*.
Those people did essentially come up with the term "open source", using their definition seems reasonable. Of course they couldn't trade mark it since it's a descriptive term.
"Free software" clearly means "software without cost" but using that definition in a discussion about "open source" and "free software" licenses is retarded.
"open source" was the norm for almost all programs in the 1960s. Spacewar was certainly as open as ATP, or more so by most definitions (no commercial claims at all), and was released in 1962. Source code for earlier games, like Nim and Wumpus, were widely available as well.
This author appears to be committing the sin of omission, conflating his IBM-centric experience with the wider world.
Maury
"speciality coffee" isn't a specifically crafted term of art invented by a particular organization.
"Open Source" is.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Apple Public Source License version 1 is an example of an OSI-approved license which is not a free software license. In fact, the APSL 1.x licenses remain a good example of the difference between "open source" and "free software". The differences between the movements put the lie to the use of the term "FOSS" when that term is used to smooth over these differences as if they didn't matter (like the /. headline does on this story). As the FSF said when APSL 1.x was current:
APSL v2.0 is a free software license with two major practical problems; so it's not recommended to release new software under APSLv2.0. There are other licenses that are OSI-approved and non-free. Such licenses exist even if there aren't many of them.
Digital Citizen
Apple Public Source License version 1 is "open source" but is not "free software".
The IT branch spun off by American Airlines, which outsourced operations to EDS (which was bought by HP). Through a few layers of gateways, Travelocity is in the same room (albeit huge) as the TPF system. They can cluster up to seven of the fastest mainframes to run as a unit with TPF, and have set records for real-time transactions per minute. All this in Tulsa, OK.
cabg x3 is a life changing event...
I'm referring to the fact that the parent was talking about the FSF definition of Free Software, not that RMS invented "Freedom".
I'm not a kid, kid. I know what's the difference. The Open Source definition was irrelevant back then, if you read the summary, you'll notice that the date there predates the day of the OSD and the various different rules it has - The source being available pretty much meant it was open source back then.
Damn it, I lost the game thanks to your signature.
Anyway, people tend to confuse and correlate the words "Open Source" with specific licenses (GPL, FSF) and organizations (FOSS, GNU).
The article clearly states, Open Source, assuming we use the definition, "of or relating to or being computer software for which the source code is freely available", and, in the referred case, change it, if you RTFA. We shouldn't try to fit the referred software in one or more of today's definitions of Open Source, because it pretty muchs predates all of this. The article just mentions that the way the development of such software worked reminds and may have influenced the Licenses, Organizations, and movement we know today.
It was 1967's definition of open source. You're confusing open source with 'the' Open Source.
IBM had the SHARE organisation since 1955.
In other words, the open source philosophy has been part of IBM's DNA since before most of us were born.
you had me at #!
"Free software" clearly means "software without cost"
Clearly? It's not clear at all. Please refer to GNU's definiton of free. From what I've observed, all the big name "FOSS" licences treat open source as having access to the code and free as having freedom to do what you wish with that source. I don't think any of them require being without cost.
It was only "open source" because the code had to be hand-crafted and re-assembled for each particular configuration. You young kids expect softwar to be rife with XML configuration files, and virtual methods, and hooks. Back in those days the code had to fit into 4K addressable segments, so they could not AFFORD to even think of opening up a file and reading configuration info, or having a table of external procedure hooks. More likely the configuration constants were not even separate, they were convenient opcodes. For instance, if you knew a 707 at this airline always had 112 seats, you'd recall that the HCF opcode happened to be 112 decimal, so you'd compare the seat count against that opcode. All you kids with your fancy separate data! Also it was extreme luxury to have a procedure hook (or as you callem nowadys "virtual methods"). You see you could only call within the current 4K block, and any addresses you wished to pass had similar or worse restrictions. And there was darnlittle dynamc linking available in old IBM DOS, so you could not call anything that had not been linked in last week at the weekly build (which took hours).
The FSF is not a license, it is the organization ("the Free Software Foundation") that produces the GPL, among other things.
FOSS is not an organization. Its an abbreviation for "Free and Open Source Software" a combination of "Free Software" and "Open Source", two terms for essentially the same thing that are each individually problematic but are less ambiguous when combined in that way -- "Free Software" (note caps) is confusing because it can be confused with "free software", e.g., software that has no financial cost to acquire but may be burdened by restrictive licenses, and "Open Source" (again, note caps) because it may be confused with software whose source is merely available, without liberal usage rights, i.e., "open source". Often, a third term for the same concept ("Libre") is incorporated to produce FLOSS.
Which, while it might be reasonable to describe as "open source" (though misleading, which is why that phrase has rarely been used that way except by makers of non-FLOSS products trying to cash in on the appeal of Open Source without actually providing it), is not and never has been a definition of "Open Source".
The things your calling "today's definitions" are the original definitions. Software with source code available, but not under the kind of licenses now called Open Source, wasn't called "Open Source", or even "open source", until after the modern Open Source movement created the term.
Well, a number of companies tried to redefine it to mean that once "open source" became popular.
But, no, it doesn't.
Well if you read the summary it's obvious that open source was a bit different back then.
I make a distinction between open source, 'The' Open Source, and F/OSS. Maybe you don't, maybe I misread the summary and they don't. Oh well.
Ahh, understand. I wasn't aware that teh other mainframes could run MVS (?) or OS/360 code.
I'm a newbie to computers as I only started with my TRS-80 in the late '70s. I didn't actually get into mainframes until the late '90s. (I still have nightmares about coding EBCDIC <> ASCII in Visual Basic.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Are you intentionally stupid?
But thanks for repeating my point.
No one wants to go on record? IBM got you by the YKWs?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Which, while it might be reasonable to describe as "open source" (though misleading, which is why that phrase has rarely been used that way except by makers of non-FLOSS products trying to cash in on the appeal of Open Source without actually providing it), is not and never has been a definition of "Open Source".
It actually has. Before "Open Source" being trademarked with OSI, "open source" referred to FOSS and COSS, but due to the improper usage of the term by companies that only "partially" opened their source code, it was replaced by terms of FOSS and COSS and "Open Source" began to mean the original definitions by OSI. See FOSS.
Maybe the author should have used the term FOSS instead of "open source", but the one who misled the definition used by him was I, who used in the same way as "Open Source" in my first post. Still, I agree with the author that the way the referred software was developed resembled in some way the movement we see today.
1967? That is old. I am wondering if the original program fell prey to Zawinski's Law:
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Are you intentionally stupid?
I am not being stupid. You took the stance that "free software" should only ever mean without cost without citing evidence and decreed that talking about freedom instead is inherently retarded. Such an argument is asinine.
But thanks for repeating my point.
I did not claim that GNU's definition was retarded. Your "point" presupposed that free means without cost. I disagree (as do many), and not just in software licenses. For example, one definition of free has as it's primary focus the concept of freedom. Removing the requirement of payment is only a subcategory of being free.
It's confusing because the term "open source" probably wasn't used in 1967. If you had the source code it probably meant you had to compile it to run, if not, you didn't. It's not as if you could take the code home and run it on your own mainframe.
I didn't take that stand, why not read what I was replying to and see if you can work it out.
Heck just read my post again and see if you can work out what I was calling retarded. Hint, it wasn't the GNU's definition.
Of course this is much more an indication of my poor writing skills than your intelligence, but that makes for a less fun reply.
What are you talking about? We've always been at war with Oceania.
No he isn't. The difference between Open Source and Free Software is an issue of copyleft - whether your modified version of the software can only be distributed under that same license or whether you can release the software under any license you wish, including incorporating it into proprietary works.
I have seen lots of debates over what the "correct" (as opposed to official) definition of Open Source Software should be, and over what license is "best". But never in all my years have I seen anyone seriously suggest that a license that doesn't even allow you do redistribute the modifications qualifies as an Open Source license. I am shocked to see so many people claiming that today, and actually be modded up +5. WTF has happened here?
In the mid 80s I did a lot of assembly programming on ACP for KLM. We (125 programmers and me) shared a test system that boasted 128MB RAM and a 100MHz'ish CPU running ACP/TPF. The production system even had double the memory. It could do 100 transactions per second. Touroperators (KLM representatives) all over the world used reservation terminals connected by satellite lines to this mainframe. It definitely was mission critical. But I think the article exaggerates a bit, because internally the story was that the KLM would go broke if the mainframe went down for three consecutive days.
When I was there, C was being tested as an alternative for assembly language, but it was thrown out, because it was too slow, and wasted too many resources.
Mind you: my iPhone has more CPU and much more memory than this mainframe, and thus could easily run the entire worldwide reservation system for an medium sized airline!
No, it's not.
Open Source - the code is freely available for your perusal.
The source being open doesn't have anything to do with your rights (or lack of) to actually use it. Those rights are protected in the various Free Software licenses.
The Microsoft research license is an Open Source license. It is not a free software license. This is the closest thing I can think of, that I know of, to what we are looking at in the article.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Years ago I worked at Western Bancorp. It was the holding company that supported the data processing for 23 banks including First Interstate Bank. We used ACP as the transactional engine running on IBM 370/195 systems. It had better runtime characteristics then the usual IBM stuff. I haven't heard it mentioned for quite a while.
I snapped to difference between Free Software and GPL/Copyleft after posting. They are not the same.
You are right that this is very simular to Microsoft's Shared Source license, and absolutely wrong that either qualify as Open Source according to OSI or any reasonable definition I have ever heard.
The fact is that OSI's definition of Open Source software and FSF's definition of Free Software (as well as the common use of both) are very similar in terms of what is allowed by the licenses. The difference is the motivation - whether it is done for practical advantage or philosophical. Both require the ability to redistribute derivative works.
I strongly encourage you to read the FSF's explanation of the differences between open source software and free software . Or at least not spread misinformation while using your FSF membership address.