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The Past, Present, and Future of OSS
CowboyNeal writes "The nature of the open source movement and its software over the years has changed considerably. From its humble beginnings in the early 80s to mainstream Android adoption, open source software along with computers and technology as a whole has gone from the sidelines to a prevalent position in the lives of modern consumers." Read below for the rest of what CowboyNeal has to say.
The open source movement that we know today has its roots in both academia and hobbyists dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Before even the founding of the FSF, public domain software was available in abundance. Software packages of all sorts were freely given away or sold for the cost of copying them. It's important to note that a given piece of public domain software may or may not have come with its source code, so while it was free in the cost sense, it wasn't yet strictly free in the freedom sense. The early versions of Bell Labs Unix included the source code, which users could use to modify and extend the OS. In 1978, Bill Joy, then a graduate student at Berkeley, released the first Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD. Rather than a complete OS, BSD was an add-on to V6 Unix. BSD would grow over the years that followed to become a nearly complete operating system. In 1983, Richard Stallman at MIT began the GNU project, to develop a free software version of Unix. By 1985, the GNU version of Emacs had its first release, and in 1987, the GNU C Compiler would follow. As parts of a possible GNU system began to coalesce, soon all that was missing was a kernel.
Both BSD and the GNU project would continue on through the early 1990s, when new catalysts for change were introduced. The release of a new BSD aimed at desktop and consumer hardware, 386BSD, was held up in courts by AT&T. Also around this time a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, would release his first operating system kernel called Linux, in 1991. By 1992, Linux would adopt the GNU Public License, and be distributed with the userland that GNU had built. Since the GNU system was nearly complete but lacked a kernel, it was a natural pairing. Also in 1992, the BSD legal case would finally be resolved, and the parts of BSD that weren't written by AT&T were released to the public, and while it was short-lived, it became the basis for NetBSD and FreeBSD, and other BSD-based operating systems. Though In 1993, an event far bigger than just the world of software hackers took place. For the first time, private individuals could acquire access to the Internet. No longer did someone have to be affiliated with a government or educational institution to get onto the Internet. This rapid influx of enthusiasts provided new manpower for both Linux and BSD projects.
In 1995, the Apache Project would make its first release, based on the source code of NCSA HTTPd, which was nearly ubiquitous as the web server used to power the Internet. Over the years, the NCSA code would be slowly rewritten, and Apache would take over NCSA HTTPd's position as the predominant web server.
By 1998, the open source movement had rapidly grown, but hadn't yet been named as such. In early 1998, Netscape announced that they would release the source code for their flagship product, Navigator. In response to this as well as the growing popularity of Linux and BSD operating systems, the term "open source" was coined and later the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond. The OSI was founded as an organization for education and advocacy, and was inclusive of GPL, BSD, and other "open source compatible" licensed software, such as the Apache Web Server and XFree86 windowing system.
From here it seemed that the sky was the limit for open source software. Over the next few years, Linux would become the de facto server software for many organizations. While desktop market share eluded Linux outside of the hobbyist and enthusiast circles, its place in the data center would be securely cemented. In 2003, a then-little-known-of company called Android, Inc. was formed and began working on software for mobile phones. Before releasing anything, they were acquired by Google in 2005 and set to work on a mobile device platform powered by Linux. In 2007, Google and many other hardware and software companies announced the Open Handset Alliance, and unveiled the Android operating system, which was built on the Linux kernel. A year later in 2008, the first Android device would ship, and by 2010, Google would begin selling their own phones, after partnering with other manufacturers.
By 2008, another odd turn of events would happen. Microsoft was long an enemy of open source and free software, seeing them as potential competitors to its proprietary systems. Soon even the giant of the proprietary software world, would begin to utilize open source software licenses. Microsoft would go so far as to use open source software as part of Windows Azure, and eventually even donate code to the Samba project.
While Linux hasn't taken over desktops in droves here in the states, the same can't be said overseas. Traffic estimates to SourceForge consistently place domestic traffic in only the 15-20% range, meaning that anywhere from 80-85% of the downloads are going overseas, where open source is an easier sell, given the prohibitive cost of a proprietary operating system. However, given the lack of actual sales figures, it's difficult to pin down how widespread open software usage actually is. One place that Linux has won big stateside, in the form of Android, is the mobile phone market, where Android now powers 52% of the smartphones domestically, and 68% of the smartphones in the entire world. 2012 saw another milestone for Linux, when Red Hat, Inc. became the first Linux company to boast of a billion dollars of revenue within a single fiscal year.
It's still difficult to predict what the future holds for open source software. With the advent of programs such as One Laptop per Child (OLPC), which has put Linux-based laptops into the hands of nearly 2 million children, a new generation of children are being raised on open source software overseas. Government adoption of open source software is as it is in other sectors, where Linux has a foothold on the server, but hasn't made significant strides into end user territory yet. That looks to be changing somewhat, with recent movements in Jordan and France, but the change is still slow in happening.
Both BSD and the GNU project would continue on through the early 1990s, when new catalysts for change were introduced. The release of a new BSD aimed at desktop and consumer hardware, 386BSD, was held up in courts by AT&T. Also around this time a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, would release his first operating system kernel called Linux, in 1991. By 1992, Linux would adopt the GNU Public License, and be distributed with the userland that GNU had built. Since the GNU system was nearly complete but lacked a kernel, it was a natural pairing. Also in 1992, the BSD legal case would finally be resolved, and the parts of BSD that weren't written by AT&T were released to the public, and while it was short-lived, it became the basis for NetBSD and FreeBSD, and other BSD-based operating systems. Though In 1993, an event far bigger than just the world of software hackers took place. For the first time, private individuals could acquire access to the Internet. No longer did someone have to be affiliated with a government or educational institution to get onto the Internet. This rapid influx of enthusiasts provided new manpower for both Linux and BSD projects.
In 1995, the Apache Project would make its first release, based on the source code of NCSA HTTPd, which was nearly ubiquitous as the web server used to power the Internet. Over the years, the NCSA code would be slowly rewritten, and Apache would take over NCSA HTTPd's position as the predominant web server.
By 1998, the open source movement had rapidly grown, but hadn't yet been named as such. In early 1998, Netscape announced that they would release the source code for their flagship product, Navigator. In response to this as well as the growing popularity of Linux and BSD operating systems, the term "open source" was coined and later the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond. The OSI was founded as an organization for education and advocacy, and was inclusive of GPL, BSD, and other "open source compatible" licensed software, such as the Apache Web Server and XFree86 windowing system.
From here it seemed that the sky was the limit for open source software. Over the next few years, Linux would become the de facto server software for many organizations. While desktop market share eluded Linux outside of the hobbyist and enthusiast circles, its place in the data center would be securely cemented. In 2003, a then-little-known-of company called Android, Inc. was formed and began working on software for mobile phones. Before releasing anything, they were acquired by Google in 2005 and set to work on a mobile device platform powered by Linux. In 2007, Google and many other hardware and software companies announced the Open Handset Alliance, and unveiled the Android operating system, which was built on the Linux kernel. A year later in 2008, the first Android device would ship, and by 2010, Google would begin selling their own phones, after partnering with other manufacturers.
By 2008, another odd turn of events would happen. Microsoft was long an enemy of open source and free software, seeing them as potential competitors to its proprietary systems. Soon even the giant of the proprietary software world, would begin to utilize open source software licenses. Microsoft would go so far as to use open source software as part of Windows Azure, and eventually even donate code to the Samba project.
While Linux hasn't taken over desktops in droves here in the states, the same can't be said overseas. Traffic estimates to SourceForge consistently place domestic traffic in only the 15-20% range, meaning that anywhere from 80-85% of the downloads are going overseas, where open source is an easier sell, given the prohibitive cost of a proprietary operating system. However, given the lack of actual sales figures, it's difficult to pin down how widespread open software usage actually is. One place that Linux has won big stateside, in the form of Android, is the mobile phone market, where Android now powers 52% of the smartphones domestically, and 68% of the smartphones in the entire world. 2012 saw another milestone for Linux, when Red Hat, Inc. became the first Linux company to boast of a billion dollars of revenue within a single fiscal year.
It's still difficult to predict what the future holds for open source software. With the advent of programs such as One Laptop per Child (OLPC), which has put Linux-based laptops into the hands of nearly 2 million children, a new generation of children are being raised on open source software overseas. Government adoption of open source software is as it is in other sectors, where Linux has a foothold on the server, but hasn't made significant strides into end user territory yet. That looks to be changing somewhat, with recent movements in Jordan and France, but the change is still slow in happening.
Hey guys did you hear? 2013 will finally be the year of linux desktop!
From the '70s to 1995 it was The Impossible Dream. A small band of dreamers nominally led by Richard Stallman, up against corporate goliaths like Microsoft and IBM. Can you possibly imagine such a world? The theme song would've been "Imagine" by John Lennon.
After Netscape Navigator exploded on the scene in 1995 and introduced the masses to the WWW, leveraging the exponential growth of telecom bandwidth exploiting optical fiber, it became Inevitable. That's because the staff at Microsoft, IBM, AOL, Netscape, and other tech companies couldn't pivot fast enough to meet the explosion in demand for technological change. The situation was ripe for freeware that could be modified and extended by tech-savvy customers, and for emerging standards to be crafted from the bottom up, rather from the usual consortium of a handful of giant tech companies eager to maintain their respective customer bases.
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Could Cowboy Neal answer why he's missing from the polls? Anyway, about the future of OSS, OSS as a paradigm will continue to exist. Open source as "existing available source code, available openly" existed pre-GNU, pre-Stallman. There is so much conflation of free software, open source, OSS, and GNU licensing that even this summary article had a few swings and misses.
It's possible for people to be a powerset (2**{whatever number of options}) of all of these different overlapping and some mutually-exclusive definitions of open source software (lowercase, like lowercase god). That would be a good poll: open source software to me means:... x, y, z, Cowboy Neal.
The most important change is the maturation of open source developers and open source development.
Use of the viral and restrictive GPL is falling dramatically and truly free licensing like BSD is on the rise. Fading away are the days of the open source world being dominated by 15 years screaming about 'possibly GPL violation!!!' on Slashdot.
Everywhere that open source is succeeding is thanks to BSD licensed software:
* BSD based Chrome over the GPL based Mozilla
* Partially BSD based OS X on the desktop over the clusterfuck of GPL Linux desktops
* BSD based(outside the kernel) Android dominating the cellphone market over the effectively dead GPL based Linux cellphone efforts
We're already witnessing the twilight of the entire F/OSS movement, unless people wake up and realize that all the gains of the last few decades will be lost if
* first to file supersedes first to invent
* free access to computing hardware is circumvented by cryptography
* cloud computing services, built on free software, because they aren't distributing binary code, aren't bound to abide by the same ethical obligations as traditional software vendors.
The forces allied against F/OSS are legion, and powerful. They will do their damnedest to bury F/OSS, because it threatens their survival. F/OSS advocates often act as if their their own survival is a given. Nothing can stop the tide. Think again. Who's fighting the good fight? Richard. What does he get for his pains? He's the constant butt of jokes around here.
As with most things in life, you'll reap what you sow. If you don't give a shit, fine, live in ignorance and let other people dictate the conditions of your life. If you do care, then get off your ass and wake the fuck up. You are losing.
And yet odds are you posted that with a browser based on an open source engine. On a website that uses open source software. Your connection to the internet most likely depends on an open source stack. Most smart phones are based on open source software. If you use GPS... well you get the idea.
For a short time, after Compaq reversed engineered the IBM BIOS and cheap components because available, it was cheap to buidl your own, but that was only because the markup on IBM and Compaq machines were very high and MS liscensing was very liberal. But you still had limited hardware. When MS cracked down on licensing, charging huge prices for single purchases, and subsidizing the OEM machine in exchange for exclusivity, that time ended.
Which is to say we are not going to see a fully open source desktop anytime soon. Consumers want a unified experience that can only come form a corporate design. That is MS, Apple, Google. Users expect the hardware to be subsidized, and is not going to pay the full price up front for a sophisticated piece of hardware. This was the problem with the original mac and newton. The hardware was expensive, almost no one had a GPU, not that sophisticated a BIOS, but was too expensive.
That said, increasing parts of the OS an user experience are open source. Of course MS has little OSS in it's operating system, and that may leave a path open for some entrepreneur to create a MS compatible system with an OSS core. Of course since people who use MS products think everything should be free, it seems that as soon as an OSS core is out there, there will be few takers to pay for it since MS is 'free' with purchase of a computer.
Which leves that application and utility software. OSS has had an effect we see on software prices. OSS software is available and widely used by those that don't get MS for free through corporate or pirate channels. In fact, IMHO, the best way to push OSS is to let the anti-pirated software people win. If software piracy is really no longer possible, then MS is either going to have to cave in pricing, or face the fate of DVD, Bluray and Blockbuster.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I think the sad optimism is elsewhere: MIcrosoft is the fourth largest tech company in the world, and everyone gives Google and Apple a free pass. We should be spending far less time worrying about ancient enemies and more time worrying about Google abusing OSS (ignoring copyrights and license obligations) and Apple (the 1000 lb Gorilla hawking closed source wares). What exactly are we worried about from Microsoft? They are one of the most lenient vendors out there - you can run whatever you want on their platform (even if that is slowly changing), and they have a metric ton of open source.
It isn't the 1990s anymore. The world has changed - Apple is the new Microsoft, and Google is a close second.
This is a good compilation of what otherwise was scattered data, and at a level of complexity that people can read quickly to grasp the history of Open Source software.
I wish it had included one major source of free 1980s software, which was software written in BASIC and/or "poke assembler" (DATA statements from BASIC that were POKEd into the memory of your A2+ or C64). Much of this was designed to hack: war dialers, exchange hackers, copy programs, deprotectors, compressors, etc.
While that may be a bit distracting as the uses were illegal, it's important to remember that at this time, finding software was difficult and with computers costing the equivalent of $5000 today, it was very hard to afford or find software. "Sharing" was how you explored the world.
I wish machines had a universal language today, as the BASIC/assembler mix was back then. The closest I've found is Perl.
Futurist Traditionalism
Yep, and Google is also a great copyright violator in copying and storing books in electronic format without adequate permission. And it uses its 800-ton Gorilla status to send its lawyer-filled-legal minions to court to try to win itself the free and solitary right to side-step copyright issues in any and all books that exist in libraries that have signed on for this corrupt mis-appropriation of private products in book and illustration form. Even the storage of this data at Google violates copyright even if they do not re-distribute it.
Google has loads of proprietary software:
Sorry, but I don't necessarily consider the enemy of my enemy to be my friend.
Software was routinely distributed in source form by user groups for particular machine system way back in the 60's, when I started computing. No one complained if someone took some of that software and improved and changed it.
It was like the garden of Eden before the Fall, which happened when people started selling software instead of giving it away.
The FOSS licences became necessary after that.
-- hendrik
Proprietary software does not equal being an enemy of FOSS. Google is very FOSS friendly, their problem is they are not very privacy friendly.
See also: http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/index.html ..."
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/neuvm.pdf
"The most important thing that IBM did to us was the announcement on February 8, 1983, of the Object Code Only (OCO) policy. I fear that ten years from now another speaker will be standing here telling you that that was the day VM died, but I hope not.
Since that day in 1983, the community has devoted enormous effort to attempting to convince IBM’s management that the OCO decision was a mistake. Many, many people have contributed to this effort in SHARE and in the other user groups. The greatest of SHARE’s source heroes is unquestionably Gabe Goldberg, who has persevered and maintained hope and a sense of humor in the face of IBM’s seemingly implacable position. In SEAS, Hans Deckers has been a particularly hard worker in the battle against OCO, and Sverre Jarp, the SEAS Past President, also deserves much praise for his role.
In February, 1985, the SHARE VM Group presented IBM with a White Paper that concluded with the sentence, “We hope that IBM will decide not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Though we had tried to make our White Paper reasonable and business-like, IBM chose not to reply to it.
A few months after the announcement of the OCO policy, IBM released the first OCO version of VM, VM/PC. VM/PC had a number of problems, including poor performance and incorrect or missing or incompatible function. Without source, the users were unable to correct or compensate for these problems, so nobody was surprised when VM/PC fell flat.
(Is that a picture of me talking to Kirk Alexander in front of an SGI Iris in the iCGL running some windowing and 3D model creation software I wrote? Not sure... Might be someone else and different software. What an amazing community back then and there -- one I did not appreciate enough at the time and just took for granted in my youth and lack of experience.)
A key point made in Melinda Varian's history of the VM Community is that even though only a small percentage of users actually looked at and changed the source code (an argument IBM made as to why providing the source did not matter), those users were a very impotent driver of fixes and innovation. When I was contracting at IBM Research around 2000, there were IBMers still angry about that decision two decades earlier and how it went badly for IBM, and they helped create some of the pressure for IBM to support the Free and Open Source Software movement. I pushed to get Python formally approved for official use in IBM Research back then, which took a bit of doing to go through IBM Legal. They even (embarrassingly) wrote Guido to ask him if he really had written it.
And:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=437640&cid=22255952
http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2010/06/artificial-scarcity-altair-basic-and.html
"Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?
Bill Gates: No. the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. You got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong."
The web with plain-text distribution of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are often readable, have been a bit of a return to those earlier days when you often had to type in BAS
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The free and open source software world becomes more business oriented. This among other facts implies 1) more businesses/companies involvement; 2) adoption of permissive licenses (e.g. MIT License, Apache License) and hence integration of free software with proprietary counterparts; and 3) loosely-woven P2P software engineering practices. While the hobbyist and enthusiast culture of development will continue to exist, it is going to be controlled by companies and organizations.
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actively blocking users from running modified software on its hardware by design
The spend millions each year on the google summer of code.
All y'all with long replies need to just use the short reply for this that you use every time this argument comes along. We think that open source produces more failures because we get to see all of them. Closed source hides its failures that never see the light of day, because only a few engineers know they ever existed, and few if any people give a fuck so it's not really great conversation fodder.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"