This article will primarily deal with the rise of Open source software or the inception of the free software foundation of the late 80's and early nineties.The Free software movement was started by Richard Stallman who was at that time working at the Artificial Intelligence lab in MIT.That was in the early 80's Microsoft was on the rise,it was the first company to market software and its first OS was MS-DOS(Microsoft disc operating system).They had marketed the DOS and sold it to IBM other major PC manufacturers during that time.But the problem with Microsoft was it had licensed its software which means they did not reveal their source code.You had to buy their source code if you wanted to improve the OS but you were bound by the agreement that you cannot market your improved version,thus the freedom of the software hobbyists were taken away.This was a shrewd marketing policy which Bill Gates had devised and sure it did work wonders for the company, Microsoft had emerged as the World leader in Software in a matter of years.But Stallman and Eric S Raymond and some other guys at MIT were not going to take things lying down.Stallman founded the Free Software foundation which had begun developing its own OS GNU(Gnu's Not Unix).It was a kind of misnomer actually but it bore the testimony of Stallman's pioneering vision to make the OS different from the prevailing UNiX OS of the time.
In a matter of years the movement spearheaded by Stallman gained momentum they had developed a major portion of their software but,what was lacking was the Kernel.The Kernel is the most important part of the OS, it is the part which acts as a interface between the users commands and the hardware.It literally is a guiding star to the rest of the OS, as it shows the software how to react to a given command and how to give the required output
The codes were freely available on the internet for anyone to download and develop on that.
Then came along the Messiah-The Redeemer and the creator of Linux Kernel.It was Linus torvalds' brainchild,Linus was a Computer science major at the University of Helsinki.He had written the Kernel for the GNU operating system.Soon people started seeing the major advantages of Linux was - it very fast and the apps which it provided were unmatched in it's time.For example The Apache web server client made Linux the preferred choice of OS for the Internet.In no time people began to see the major advantages of the Linux OS.
Hence the movement which had begun with a limited few spread to the masses, a whirlwind of change swept across the software market as more and more people began improving the Linux OS and organised themselves into communities the most famous Linux communities are Fedora, Mandriva,Ubuntu.
Whereas some of the important Linux Vendors are Red Hat, Debian Linux,VA Linux system etc.
It must be mentioned here that free software doesnot mean free of cost but freedom to work with it and improve it and market it.Similarly The first Linux Expo was organised in 1999 when the number of Linux users had crossed the 12 million mark a veritable threat to Microsoft's windows.In that conference the name Open source was formally adopted and all the copyrights,rules relating to its use were issued.The formal definition of Open source was also formally adopted.
Then the major companies like Oracle,Netscape,MySQL, had decided to reveal their source codes. Even the Prodigal son microsoft had decided to reveal a part of its Windows source code.This was the nature and magnitude of change which Linux had brought indeed it is a force to reckon with and its potency is not yet exhausted.
This was the David and Goliath story of our times and indeed true to its biblical predecessor David always triumphs over Goliath,because in the valley of Elah its faith,perseverance and courage that counts.
For more information you can refer to the links given below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
In a matter of years the movement spearheaded by Stallman gained momentum they had developed a major portion of their software but,what was lacking was the Kernel.The Kernel is the most important part of the OS, it is the part which acts as a interface between the users commands and the hardware.It literally is a guiding star to the rest of the OS, as it shows the software how to react to a given command and how to give the required output
The codes were freely available on the internet for anyone to download and develop on that.
Then came along the Messiah-The Redeemer and the creator of Linux Kernel.It was Linus torvalds' brainchild,Linus was a Computer science major at the University of Helsinki.He had written the Kernel for the GNU operating system.Soon people started seeing the major advantages of Linux was - it very fast and the apps which it provided were unmatched in it's time.For example The Apache web server client made Linux the preferred choice of OS for the Internet.In no time people began to see the major advantages of the Linux OS.
Hence the movement which had begun with a limited few spread to the masses, a whirlwind of change swept across the software market as more and more people began improving the Linux OS and organised themselves into communities the most famous Linux communities are Fedora, Mandriva,Ubuntu.
Whereas some of the important Linux Vendors are Red Hat, Debian Linux,VA Linux system etc.
It must be mentioned here that free software doesnot mean free of cost but freedom to work with it and improve it and market it.Similarly The first Linux Expo was organised in 1999 when the number of Linux users had crossed the 12 million mark a veritable threat to Microsoft's windows.In that conference the name Open source was formally adopted and all the copyrights,rules relating to its use were issued.The formal definition of Open source was also formally adopted.
Then the major companies like Oracle,Netscape,MySQL, had decided to reveal their source codes. Even the Prodigal son microsoft had decided to reveal a part of its Windows source code.This was the nature and magnitude of change which Linux had brought indeed it is a force to reckon with and its potency is not yet exhausted.
This was the David and Goliath story of our times and indeed true to its biblical predecessor David always triumphs over Goliath,because in the valley of Elah its faith,perseverance and courage that counts.
For more information you can refer to the links given below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
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