Star Open Source Decade: 10 Years After the Free Software Summit
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 7th Apr 2008 22:21 UTC
GNU, GPL, Open Source "One of the most significant moments in the history of the modern software industry took place in 1998 when Netscape announced plans to release the source code of its browser under a license that would freely permit modification and redistribution. That pivotal event represents the point at which software freedom extended its reach beyond the enthusiast community and began its ascent into the mainstream. To celebrate the success of the past ten years and reflect on some of the challenges that the open-source software community will face in the future, we spoke to some of the pioneers who were there on day zero when revolution started. We want to share their perspectives on a wide range of issues, including software patents, the emerging challenges and opportunities created by cloud computing, open-source software on the desktop, the importance of interoperability, and the ongoing fight to bring software freedom to the masses."
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RE: And the 40 years before that?
by irbis on Tue 8th Apr 2008 10:11 UTC in reply to "And the 40 years before that?"
irbis
Member since:
2005-07-08

Open sourcing Netscape was important, of course. But I'm not sure if it was that revolutionary? It could be described more like going back to the original open source philosophy in software development.

Open source was mainstream, and also used by commercial companies already long before open-sourcing Netscape.

Also, wasn't it so that RMS started his free software movement when some commercial software (printer software etc.), that was previously open source, became proprietary and could not be modified and tweaked anymore?

From Wikipedia:

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it was normal for computer users to have the freedoms provided by free software. Software was produced largely by academics and corporate researchers working in collaboration and was not itself seen as a commodity. Software was commonly shared by individuals who used computers and by hardware manufacturers who were glad that people were making software that made their hardware useful. In the 70s and early 80s, the software industry began to apply copyright law, and began using technical measures such as only distributing binary copies, to prevent computer users from being able to study and modify the software.

In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU project after becoming frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and users.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_software

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