Monthly Archives: June 2010

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds (born on December 28, 1969, Finland, Helsinki) is a famous software engineer. Torvalds marked the beginning of development of the Linux kernel and git revision control system. He grew interested in computers thanks to his maternal grandfather. In 1988 Linus Torvalds joined the University of Helsinki. In 1986 he graduated the University by taking his master degree in computer science. A significant event in his life was the discovering and reading of the book “Operating Systems: Design and Implementation” by Andrew Tanenbaum. The author of this book presented the structure of Unix operating systems basing on the example of “Minix” Software. Linus took a great interest in this. Later on, he purchased a computer with an Intel 386 CPU and installed Minix. By analyzing this system, Linus discovered some defects in the program. Therefore he began to do the terminal emulation program independently. This was the beginning of Linux creation. Linus added new functions to the software. Owing to these innovations, the software acquired features of operational system of full value. Originally, Linus Torvalds was about to name his operational system “Freax”. However his friend suggested naming it Linux.

On the 17th of September, 1991, Linus presented the source code for general use. The system attracted attention of a great number of programmers. They began to work on its improvement and additions. The software has been spreading out up till now on terms of public license GNU-GPL.

The Minix’s creator, professor Andrew Tanenbaum came out against the system design. However, Linus Torvalds stood his ground.

It is interesting to note that a penguin Tux is Linus’ talisman. The penguin also became the emblem of Linux. In his book “Just for Fun”, Linus Torvalds wrote, that he chose a penguin for Linux emblem. As once he was pecked by a penguin in the zoo.

Besides, Linus displayed his talent of a poem writer. His main work is well famous.

In June, 2003, Linus began working under the patronage of the Open Source Development Labs. It is a consortium which is formed by high-tech companies such as JBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, AMP, RedHat Novel and others. The main goal of this consortium is to further the development of Linux.

In January 2007, Open Source Development Laboratory amalgamated with The Free Standards Group to form The Linux Foundation.

Free Software Foundation Activity

Free software is software that offers a compute user the freedom to study, modify and redistribute it. Free software is considered the foundation of a learning society, whose purpose is to share experience and knowledge with other computer users and programmers. The free software movement was founded by world famous programmer Richard Stallman in 1983. At that time the computer scientist initiated a GNU project. 2 years later Stallman launched the Free Software Foundation.

One of the main missions of this Foundation is the educating on behalf of programmers from every corner of the globe. Millions of people from the whole world give preference to free software which they install on their computers.

Year after year free software developers gather a great number of copyright assignments from individuals and corporations who work on free software.

Free Software Foundation records the collected copyrights together with US copyright office and issue the license, which enables the users to distribute the software in question. This process guarantees that free software distributors work in compliance with the main obligations to convey freedom to other users, and to share, modify and study the code. This work is possible thanks to free software licensing and Compliance Laboratory. The GNU General Public License, being the most popular free software license in the world is published by FSF. The main object of the world recognized license is the conserving and promoting software freedom. Other licenses, published by Free Software Foundation are the GNU Lesser General Public License, the GNU Free Document License, the GNU Affero General Public License and the GNU Free Document License.

The Foundation supports the freedom of software, being against proprietary software. It is also presents significant resources to the public that include the FSF/Unesco free software directory.

Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman (born March, 16 1953, New York City) is a world famous programmer. He is the author of such programs as GNU Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and GNU Debugger. Stallman is also considered the founder of free software, GNU project, Free Software Foundation and League for Programming Freedom.

During his years of studies at Harvard University, Richard Stallman worked as a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. After graduating from Harvard University, Stallman became a student at MIT. Soon he refused from his plans to continue his scientific education. In 1984 Stallman gave up working at the Laboratory, to set to work on GNU project, which was founded by him in September, 1983. Beginning with the middle of 1990’s, Richard Stallman developed less software, as he devoted his time to the developing of free software concepts.

Stallman is the author of a great number of essays written on software freedom. He has regularly made speeches which are entitled “The GNU project and the Free Software Movement”, “The Dangers of Software Patents”, and “Copyright and Community in the age of Computer Networks”. In 1999 Stallman suggested developing a free on-line encyclopedia, by inviting people to contribute articles.

Over the time of many years, Richard Stallman has supported the exactness of his terminology. Stallman does not accept the term “open source software” because it does not render the value of the software such as freedom. He asks people to use the term “free software”, because of the freedom issues of this software. He also affirms that one has to say “proprietary software” instead of “closed source software”, in the event if, the software can not be distributed, used or modified freely. It is noteworthy that Richard Stallman takes the terminology most seriously. For instance, he agrees to give interview only to those journalists who will use his terminology in the article.

Free Software. Why Is It Free?

Free software is software that gives its users the right to unlimited installation, program startup, free usage, studying, redistribution and modifying. The software is available free of charge, however in some cases it can have a fee.

The name “free software” had been previously used in the Unix world. Not long ago it was accepted in the general computer community. Free software is also called as Freed Software, Liberated Software or freely redistributable software.

In 1983 Richard Stallman set up free software movement. The goal of the given movement was to provide the “software freedom” to computer users. It is noteworthy that the notion itself was introduced by Richard Stallman and it reflects the principles of open software engineering in the scientific community, which was formed in American universities in 1970’s. Richard Stallman formulated the principles of free software. These principles mention authors’ rights, which are transmitted to the computer users:

Freedom 0: the software can be used freely for any purpose;

Freedom 1: freedom to study the way the program operates and adapt it to your purposes, on condition that the incoming text of the program is available;

Freedom 2: you may redistribute the copies of the program freely, to help your neighbors;

Freedom 3: the program may be modified and improved freely. The improvements may be released to the public as well, to profit the whole community.

The main condition of the third freedom is the availability of the incoming text of the program and the possibility to make modifications and corrections in the program.

If the software satisfies the requirements of these four principles, it can be considered free software. Thus it is free and available for modifying and revising.

As opposed to “freeware” which does not have a fee, free software may be redistributed by collecting payment for it, or it can be absolutely free of charge. However, the main thing concerning the software in question is to follow four principles of freedom.

Free Software Advantages

Pragmatic Advantages of Free Software
Free software is distinguished by good quality because the code is studied and revised by a great number of programmers. The packages of free software are usually well designed in order to attract many developer communities. Another pragmatic advantage of the software in question is considered to be its security. This fact is explained by the key and lock argument. The existing lock of free software is well kept. In addition, free software as well as proprietary software can be regarded as stable ones. Despite of the fact, that nowadays up-to-date versions of the software appear at great speed, still a computer user gives preference either to the previous or latest versions.

If the original developing company puts an end to its activity, you can always address another software company to find the necessary support. Moreover a user has unrestricted freedom to decide on the software and to use it for his/her purposes as long as s/he wishes. All the users have the possibility to share with experience with each other.

The Variability Advantage
Free Software is developed to be adapted to the computer user’s needs. A computer user is given the freedom to revise and make changes in free software. Such freedom of revising and redistribution increases the variability of the program, making it available for the other users. The changes are usually accepted by the package maintainers. When the corrections do not present great interest, they can be rejected. They can also exist in the limited niche, for which they were developed.

As opposed to free software developers, proprietary software companies search for a niche beforehand. A computer user is not allowed to modify the software for the other niches. In spite of the fact, that a great number of proprietary software copies can be sold, still their software is distinguished by reduced variability in comparison with the free software companies.

Open Source Initiative

Open Source Initiative is an organization which has been founded to promote free software. OSI was founded by Bruce Perens and Eric Steven Raymond in February, 1998. At that time Netscape Communications Corporation published Netscape Communicator source code as free software because of the decline in profits and competition with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Eric Raymond was at the head of OSI beginning with its founding until February, 2005. Michael Tiemann is the incumbent president of the organization in question.

Being the public organization, OSI runs the project Open Source Definition. It reviews and approves licenses as OSD-Conformant. The organization takes an active part in Open Source community building and education.

The members of OSI Board go on travels around the world in order to visit Open Source Conferences and to see Open Source users and developers. Thus OSI Board members have also the possibility to discuss private and public issues with bodies of executive power. These issues have to do with Open Source technologies, licenses and development of models which can ensure economic and strategic benefits.

The initial period of the open-source movement concurred with the dot-com phenomenon that was booming in 1998-2000. At that time the computer operating system Linux enjoyed wide popularity. It was also the period of open-source-friendly companies foundation. The open source movement drew the mainstream software industry’s attention. This lead to open source software offerings, received from software companies, which included Corel (Corel Linux), Sun Microsystems (OpenOfficeorg), IBM (Open   AFS). In 2001 when the dot-com era was booming, Open Source Initiative lived up the expectations of its advocates. Thus its activity was continued. The current status of OSI is “Active”. It is worth mentioning that open-source related movements of OSI include Iranian Free /Open Source users Community(Iran), MyOSS (Malaysia), IGOS (Indonesia) and Ma3bar (Arab Region).