History of open source

The History of Open Source is tied to three				2000).
operating systems: Unix, GNU, and Linux.
These were projects that initially shaped the				In the early 1980s, the community at MIT AI
identity of the open source community,				Lab began to collapse, due in part to
beginning in the 1960s and continuing to the				computer architecture advances that rendered
present day, and proved that open source is a				ITS obsolete. Computers that were replacing
viable software development model. No study				MITâ€™s PDP-10s had their own operating
of open source is complete without				systems, but none were open source. Even
understanding the history of these systems.				getting an executable copy meant signing a
				non-disclosure agreement.
Unix
				At the same time that ITS became obsolete,
Multics				the AI Lab community also disbanded. One of
				the first people to move away was Brian Reed
In the late 1960s, Bell Labs, owned by AT&T,				of Carnegie Mellon University. Instead of
began working collaboratively with General				sharing his text-formatting program Scribe,
Electric and the Massachusetts Institute of				with the AI Lab community, he sold it to a
Technology to create a new operating system.				commercial company, which altered the code to
The system, known as Multics, was to be used				insure profits rather than communal
in-house at Bell Labs. Although Multics was a				improvements. Soon, spin-off companies began
significant achievement in the realm of				breaking away from the community. Eventually,
computer science, it was also time-consuming				nearly all of the programmers were hired away
and expensive. Its goals were too lofty for				to work on commercial software projects.
Bell Labs to achieve, and in 1968 Bell began				Richard Stallman was left with a choice:
to withdraw from the project (Hauben 1994).
				"One: join the proprietary software world,
Some of the last people to work on Multics,				sign the non disclosure agreements and
at Bell Labs, were Ken Thompson, Dennis				promise not to help his fellow hackers. Two:
Ritchie, and Joe Ossanna. For these three and				leave the computer field altogether. Or
others, the loss of Multics was a disaster.				three, look for a way that a programmer could
At the time, other operating systems lacked				do something for the good. He asked himself,
the flexibility and simplicity that Multics				was there a program or programs he could
had promised. Thompson and the rest decided				write, so as to make a community possible
to build a new operating system to suit their				again?" (Rasch 2000).
programming needs. After Bell Labs rejected
their requests for a new computer, the group				The GNU Project
found an obsolete PDP-7 computer on which to
begin their efforts. They called the new				Stallmanâ€™s ideals of software were
operating system Unix to distinguish it from				lofty: he wanted free software for the
Multics and began work.				masses. According to Stallman, the definition
				of a truly free software is a program that
Multics was distributed in 1975 to 2000 by				allows users the right to run the program for
Groupe Bull in Europe, and in the U.S. by				any purpose, modify the program to suit their
Bull HN Information Systems Inc. In 2006 Bull				needs, redistribute copies with open source,
SAS open sourced Multics versions MR10.2,				and distribute modified versions of the
MR11.0, MR12.0, MR12.1, MR12.2, MR12.3,				program with open source (Stallman 2002).
MR12.4 & MR12.5. [1]
				Stallman decided to start creating open
Unix				software by developing an operating system,
				the most crucial software for using a
Work progressed smoothly on Unix throughout				computer. He anticipated a "community of
the early 1970s. The group acquired new				cooperating hackers" that would develop
computers, developed the high-level				around the project much as in the MIT AI Lab
programming language C, making Unix portable,				(Stallman 2002). He chose to make the
and created many new tools to make Unix more				operating system Unix compatible because that
useful. Within Bell Labs, other departments				was the dominant system at the time. Stallman
began to use Unix for a variety of tasks.				picked the acronym GNU for his project,
Unix eventually became the standard for				according to a hacker custom of creating
Bellâ€™s computing needs, and a				recursive acronyms. GNU stands for
development support group, called Unix				"GNUâ€™s Not Unix" (Stallman 2002).
Support Group, was formed to provide support
for a standard version of Unix.				Stallman resigned from MIT in January 1984 so
				that MIT would have no claim on distributing
Even in its infancy, word of Unix was				GNU. He would avoid GNU becoming proprietary
spreading throughout the computing world.				software at all costs. However, he was
Unix was particularly appealing to the				invited by the head of the MIT AI Lab to
academic computer science community. Academic				continue using the MIT facilities.
institutions were able to purchase licenses
for the Unix source code very cheaply.				In 1985, Stallman founded the Free Software
Government and commercial licenses were much				Foundation (FSF), a tax-exempt charitable
more expensive.				organization, to support the free software
				development being done on the GNU Project.
In November of 1973, Professor Bob Fabry of				Stallman also contributed to the project by
the University of California at Berkeley				writing a multiple language compiler known as
attended a presentation on Unix at Purdue				GCC, a debugger (GDB), a text editor (GNU
University. His interest was piqued, and				Emacs), and other software.
Fabry convinced Berkeley to purchase a PDP-11
45 computer capable of running the current				In order to ensure that GNU would remain open
version 4 of Unix. In January of the next				source in future, Stallman created the GNU
year, Version 4 Unix was installed with the				General Public License (GPL). The GPL
help of Ken Thompson of Bell Labs.				specified "that users of the source code
				could view, change, or add to the code,
In the fall of 1975, Ken Thompson decided to				provided they made their changes available
take a one-year sabbatical from Bell Labs to				under the same license as the original code"
teach at Berkeley, his alma mater. The				(GNU General Public License). Stallman
Computer Science department had just				received the MacArthur fellowship, which
purchased the new PDP-11/70 computer, and				entails a stipend of $500,000, in 1990 for
Thompson helped to install the latest version				his work with GNU, the GPL, and the FSF.
of Unix, Version 6, on it. Two graduate
students, Bill Joy and Chuck Haley, also				The GNU operating system continued to grow
arrived in 1975, and began working on a				throughout the 1990s, developing piece by
Pascal compiler written by Thompson, a new				piece. Each piece was implemented on a Unix
text editor, and improvements to underlying				system, so that components could be completed
parts of the Unix system itself.				and distributed before the entire system was
				released. By 1990, the only major piece
Other programmers began to take interest in				missing from the system was the kernel. A
the new Pascal compiler at Berkeley, and				kernel is the core of an operating system
during the year of 1977, Joy began to				"that provides basic services for all other
distribute the "Berkeley Software				parts of the operating system" ("Kernel").
Distribution," an open source version of Unix
containing the improvements and additions				Stallmanâ€™s team began work on a kernel
made at Berkeley. BSD was sold for a nominal				in 1990, called Hurd. However, work is
fee to people who had already obtained a Unix				progressing slowly.
license from AT&T. In mid-1978, Joy put
together the "Second Berkeley Software				Linux
Distribution," or 2BSD, which was distributed
the following year. Distribution jumped from				Minix
about thirty copies with the original BSD to
about seventy-five copies with 2BSD.				In 1987, a professor, Andrew Tanenbaum,
				invented Minix, a clone of the Unix operating
Improvements continued, increasing				system to be used for educational purposes.
portability, improving memory usage, and				Minix was not the most sophisticated of
implementing new tools. In December 1979,				operating systems, but its appeal to
3BSD was released, and nearly 100 copies were				programmers worldwide was that all 12,000
shipped. At this time, with the breakup of				lines of C and assembly were available to be
Bell, the price of Unix licenses for the				studied and tinkered with (Hasan 1999).
academic community began to increase. AT&T
shifted management of Unix to a new group and				Linux
began emphasizing proprietary versions of
Unix (Dibona et al.: McKusick 1999). The				In August of 1991, Linus Torvalds, a 21 year
first of these new releases was System III in				old Computer Science student at the
1982, followed in 1983 by System V. Berkeley				University of Helsinki, posted to the Minix
moved to fill the void Bell had left in open				users newsgroup that he was working on a new,
distributions and continued to release				free operating system, adding parenthetically
further versions of BSD, using a new open				that it was "just a hobby, wonâ€™t be
source software license known as the BSD				big and professional like GNU" (Newitz). What
License.				Torvalds was actually creating was a kernel,
				the core of an operating system.
AT&T did not begin heavy commercial promotion
of Unix until the mid-1980s. What they found				In 1992, the completed Linux kernel was
when they ventured into the market was that				combined with the incomplete GNU operating
many vendors were already selling their own				system, resulting in a working open source
proprietary version of Unix. The issue of the				operating system. According to Stallman, "It
day was which version of Unix would become				is due to Linux that we can actually run a
dominant. In 1987, in an effort to unify the				version of the GNU system today" (Stallman
market, AT&T formed an alliance with Sun				2002). In later years, this combination of
Microsystems, a strong supporter of BSD. In				GNU and Linux along with other free software
response to the move, several vendors created				exploded in popularity and became commonly
the Open Software Foundation (OSF) to support				known simply as Linux.
their own open source versions of Unix. AT&T
and Sun in turn formed Unix International.				In September, version 0.01 of the Linux
Thus the "Unix Wars" began (The Open Group				kernel was released on the net, and
2001).				enthusiasm began to rise around the project
				(Hasan 1999). On October 5th, Torvalds sent a
The Unix Wars				formal call for volunteers to the Minix
				newsgroup, saying "Are you without a nice
Throughout the remainder of the 1980s and				project and just dying to cut your teeth on a
into the 1990s, the Unix Wars raged. During				OS you can try to modify for your needs?"
this time, many different versions of Unix				(Newitz 2000). Torvaldsâ€™ plea appealed
were released, both proprietary and open				to many programmersâ€™ senses of
source. In 1991, AT&T spun off Unix System				curiosity and excitement. By December,
Laboratories, which passed through several				version 0.10 was released, still as a
hands before being bought in 1995 by Santa				bare-bones kernel.
Cruz Operation (SCO).
				And soon after version 0.12 was released,
Three distinct versions of BSD emerged from				Linux was then licensed under the GNU General
the Unix Wars: FreeBSD, known for its				Public License to ensure that the source
simplicity, stability, and ease of use;				would be free to all (in fact the readme for
NetBSD, known for its portability and				that release stated that it will soon be
research-oriented environment; and OpenBSD,				licensed under that license. Linus was just
known for its high level of security and				checking for licensing issues before doing
stability (Howard). Other versions of open				so). In the ensuing years, thousands of
source Unix are available as well, including				people began working with Linux, helping to
a version from SCO itself and Darwin, the				improve the kernel itself or writing software
foundation on which Appleâ€™s Mac OS X				for use on Linux systems.
is built.
				Throughout the 1990s, as Linux swelled in
The GNU Project				popularity and became more and more
				sophisticated, vendors began distributing it
MIT				commercially. Although Linux was and is free
				and open source, vendors such as Red Hat,
In 1971, Richard Stallman, a Harvard				Novell and Mandriva have gathered it into a
undergraduate student, began working at the				format that more closely resembles other
MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, primarily on				contemporary operating systems. With the
the ITS, an operating system unique to the				addition of graphical user interfaces and
computers at MIT. The community at the MIT AI				other user-friendly features, these
Lab was a small group of programmers who				distributors were able to profit from selling
improved code by passing it back and forth;				open source bundled into a product that
in other words, the groupâ€™s software				everyday users wanted and could use with ease
development basis was open source (Rasch				(Newitz 2000).

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What is open source software

History of open source