From eaf88576f14b02bb162f2a900dfaf71da7aa6924 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: D. Joe Date: Apr 16 2020 14:45:10 +0000 Subject: Took a pass through this with enchant -a > spelling to ferret out some spelling errors --- diff --git a/foss-primer.md b/foss-primer.md index 3e20c1f..57f3580 100644 --- a/foss-primer.md +++ b/foss-primer.md @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Though we might talk about these groups of people using different terms, the dig ## Free and open source software criteria -Software is free and open if it is available to its users under certain criteria. There is broad agreement about these criteria, expressed at more or less length by the Open Source Initiative's (OSI's) Open Source Defintion (OSD), by the Debian project's Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) from which the OSD was first derived, and the Free Software Foundation and GNU Project's four freedoms. I usually summarize these as *the four R's* +Software is free and open if it is available to its users under certain criteria. There is broad agreement about these criteria, expressed at more or less length by the Open Source Initiative's (OSI's) Open Source Definition (OSD), by the Debian project's Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) from which the OSD was first derived, and the Free Software Foundation and GNU Project's four freedoms. I usually summarize these as *the four R's* * **Run** * **Read** @@ -77,9 +77,9 @@ In that same period, the *Bayh-Dole Act* (1980) opened the door for government c Computing industry changes from the 1960s--both legally with the invalidation of patents IBM relied upon to dominate the industry, and technically, as the miniaturization most spectacularly exemplified by the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) made its way into devices affordable by hobbyists--came to fruition in the late 1970s with the rise of industries around so-called 8-bit computing (not the least of which were today's powerhouses Microsoft and Apple). -The ferment from this commercialization of computing disrupted cloisters of early computing enthusiasts on each coast, at MIT and at Berkeley. These communities worked on the cutting edge hardware of the day, mainframes and minicomputers, rather than the small, new, relatively cheap, but relatively underpowered 8-bit hobbyist computers. Dismay at the creation of an almost Montague versus Capulet divide at the MIT AI lab over who had access to what source code for what computer for what purpose led to the establishment of the GNU project and later the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Participants in the GNU project and FSF in turn created and supported the use of the GNU General Public Licenses (the GPL licenses) in their various forms. Also at MIT, a number of projects under the Project Athena umbrella were first developed and deployed which are still in use, or whose direct descendents are still in use, including the X11 window system and the Kerberos trusted-third-party authentication (information security) system. These other projects tended to carry a free and open source software license often loosely referred to as the MIT license and were adopted by other universities and research centers. +The ferment from this commercialization of computing disrupted cloisters of early computing enthusiasts on each coast, at MIT and at Berkeley. These communities worked on the cutting edge hardware of the day, mainframes and minicomputers, rather than the small, new, relatively cheap, but relatively underpowered 8-bit hobbyist computers. Dismay at the creation of an almost Montague versus Capulet divide at the MIT AI lab over who had access to what source code for what computer for what purpose led to the establishment of the GNU project and later the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Participants in the GNU project and FSF in turn created and supported the use of the GNU General Public Licenses (the GPL licenses) in their various forms. Also at MIT, a number of projects under the Project Athena umbrella were first developed and deployed which are still in use, or whose direct descendants are still in use, including the X11 window system and the Kerberos trusted-third-party authentication (information security) system. These other projects tended to carry a free and open source software license often loosely referred to as the MIT license and were adopted by other universities and research centers. -Meanwhile, at Berkeley, enthusiasts had been given research access to what was at the time illegal-to-commercialize AT&T Unix source code. In ship-of-Theseus fashion the University of California, Berkeley hackers proceded to add and remove parts to it until not much of what came from AT&T was left. +Meanwhile, at Berkeley, enthusiasts had been given research access to what was at the time illegal-to-commercialize AT&T Unix source code. In ship-of-Theseus fashion the University of California, Berkeley hackers proceeded to add and remove parts to it until not much of what came from AT&T was left. ## Free and Open Source software emerges @@ -127,8 +127,7 @@ A great deal of software is written for various forms of *in house* use and is n ### Myth: Free and open source software is poor quality. -**Busted:** Sturgeon's Law--90% of everything is crap--applies. A great many one-off projects, either experiments or toys or abandoned student projects, are increasingly available given how easy and cheap it has become to share code. This sort of software always was written, but now more people are writing it, and more of what people write is visible. The advantage of this great diversity is that it makes room for experimental or niche applications that might otherwise never have been developed, or never have found an audience. Not every piece of software has to be a slickly-produced mass-makret -best-seller to have value to someone. +**Busted:** Sturgeon's Law--90% of everything is crap--applies. A great many one-off projects, either experiments or toys or abandoned student projects, are increasingly available given how easy and cheap it has become to share code. This sort of software always was written, but now more people are writing it, and more of what people write is visible. The advantage of this great diversity is that it makes room for experimental or niche applications that might otherwise never have been developed, or never have found an audience. Not every piece of software has to be a slickly-produced mass-market best-seller to have value to someone. Beyond that, though, are best-in-class pieces of software like the Linux kernel, the Apache and nginx web servers, a vast array of programming languages and tools, and so much more. Very often the FOSS packages available merely work differently from their non-free alternatives, even if they work just as well, or represent a different set of design trade-offs. These differences may read to someone invested in a non-free tool as deficits even if the free software is cheaper and more flexible to use and deploy. This bias against the free tool becomes more pronounced when the costs of negotiating license agreements for the proprietary software are hidden from or subsidized for the end user (cf, systems of centrally-administered site licenses and educational loss-leader type discounts). diff --git a/foss-primer.pdf b/foss-primer.pdf index a67db26..11de62b 100644 Binary files a/foss-primer.pdf and b/foss-primer.pdf differ