Talks/FLOSS Overview: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:46, 17 June 2012

This talk was initially given at given at::Knight News Conference on delivered on::June 18, 2009. The talk was length::45 in length.

This talk tries to give a comprehensive overview of free and open source software. The talk is framed in terms of a historical narrative but the focus, in terms of content, tries to focus on the concepts, principles, projects, and people at the heart of free and open source software.

My background is in work on free software projects over 17 years(!) in a variety of projects:

Early History[edit]

RMS Printer story / MIT AI Lab (familiar to many people)
Emacs Software Sharing Commune
Free software was a reclaimist movement for freedom

Early Structure[edit]

Free Software Definition
Free Software Foundation
Copyleft
GPL
Strong orientation as social movement
- Free software people are not always great at conveying this, but free software can be understand as a powerful call for user control over their own technology
GNU Project and the creation of a replacement for UNIX

Moving Beyond GNU[edit]

BSDs, Minix, and the GNU HURD
X and early struggles with commercialization and openness: permissive versus copyleft licensing
Linus Torvalds and Linux
Distributions
Apache web server

Open Source[edit]

Open Source is born of frustration with free software personality and its posture with business interests and the late 90s tech bubble and the DotCom boom
Open Source Initiative started by Eric Raymond (author of Cathedral and the Bazaar), Bruce Perens and others
Open Source Definition
Motivations emphasizing the pragmatic benefits of fee software
- OS can be seen as a development methodology
- "A inherently better way to produce better software"
"Opposite of a schism"

Going Mainstream (ups and downs)[edit]

Perhaps the major breakthrough was with Netscape releasing code to their browser in 1998
Many other companies ended up getting carried away in the boom (VA Linux (LNUX has single biggest IPO) (Krantz and Henry, 1999)
Dotcom Bust
Reemergence of people who care about liberty and freedom (or institutional independence and autonomy)
- Social movements again
- Governments in Europe/S. America/etc.

Adapting FOSS Principles[edit]

Many groups have been explicitly inspired and have created lots of other "open source blanks" (e.g., medicine, invention, literature, music, etc).
Most groups take inspiration from:
- Massively parallel production
- Large volunteer communities
- High levels of "user innovation" and lead users
Most buildings on licenses (esp. copyleft) of FOSS but it's important to realize that these are instrumental in some cases, making mroe normatively sort of descriptions and calls for free things

New Developments[edit]

Network services produce a number of important challenges related to data and deep problems associated with shared ownership of a shared resources (free software is actually deeply troubled)
- Autonomo.us
- Franklin Street Statement
Software Patenting
- End Software Patents
New business models
- MySQL, dual mode system

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+''This talk was initially given at [[given at::Knight News Conference]]'' on [[delivered on::June 18, 2009]]. The talk was [[length::45]] in length.''
 This talk tries to give a comprehensive overview of free and open source software. The talk is framed in terms of a historical narrative but the focus, in terms of content, tries to focus on the concepts, principles, projects, and people at the heart of free and open source software.
-My background is in work on free software projects over 16 years(!) in a variety of projects:
+My background is in work on free software projects over 17 years(!) in a variety of projects:
 * [http://www.debian.org Debian]
@@ Line 21: / Line 23: @@
 * [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GPL]
 * Strong orientation as social movement
-** Software people are not always great at conveying this, but free
+** Free software people are not always great at conveying this, but free software can be understand as a powerful call for user control over their own technology
-software can be understand as a powerful call for user control over
-their own technology
 * [http://www.gnu.org GNU Project] and the creation of a replacement for UNIX
@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 * Perhaps the major breakthrough was with Netscape releasing code to their browser in 1998
-* Many other companies ended up getting carried away in the boom (VA
+* Many other companies ended up getting carried away in the boom (VA Linux (LNUX has single biggest IPO) (Krantz and Henry, 1999)
-Linux (LNUX has single biggest IPO) (Krantz and Henry, 1999)
 * Dotcom Bust
 * Reemergence of people who care about liberty and freedom (or institutional independence and autonomy)
@@ Line 61: / Line 60: @@
 ** Large volunteer communities
 ** High levels of "user innovation" and lead users
-* Most buildings on ''licenses'' (esp. copyleft) of FOSS but it's important to realize that these are instrumental
+* Most buildings on ''licenses'' (esp. copyleft) of FOSS but it's important to realize that these are instrumental in some cases, making mroe normatively sort of descriptions and  calls for free things
-- in some cases, making mroe normatively sort of descriptions and
+=== New Developments ===
-  calls for free things
-=== New Challenges ===
+* Network services produce a number of important challenges related to data and deep problems associated with shared ownership of a shared resources (free software is actually deeply troubled)
-* Network services produce a number of important challenges:
 ** [http://autonomo.us Autonomo.us]
 ** [http://autonomo.us/2008/07/franklin-street-statement/ Franklin Street Statement]
 * Software Patenting
 ** [http://endsoftwarepatents.org End Software Patents]
+* New business models
+** MySQL, dual mode system
+[[Category:Talks]]