A look back at the history of free software and open source

Andrej Shadura

Debian, Collabora

23 August 2019

Presenter Notes

Very often, we get so used to certain things, we forget how the world looked without them.

Passports

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  • once a document of privilege
  • later, an instrument of oppression

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Originally, a document to prove a right for protection, they eventually turned into an instrument to prevent people from travelling. By the end of the 19th century, most of the world has already abolished them, an ‘oppressive invention’ as Napoleon III, who’s put an end to them in France in 1860.

Statue of Liberty

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You could travel to the United States and see the Statue of Liberty without a passport.

Passport conference

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Very soon though, during the first world war, passports returned as a temporary measure. Nothing is as permanent as temporary measures, it is often said. Passports were here to stay, and by 1947 getting rid of them has become a distant dream.

Software Copyrights

  • Didn’t exist in the US before 1974
  • Programs could be considered ideas, procedures, methods, systems, and processes

Presenter Notes

Software copyrights are in a way similar. Initially, software was not protected by copyrights or similar laws at all. In particular, in the US, prior to 1974, object code wasn’t copyrightable due to lack of creativity while the consensus on the source code was that it was not copyrightable, because computer programs could be considered ideas, procedures, methods, systems, and processes.

Punch cards

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In fact, quite a lot of software was distributed as source code: on punch cards…

Listings

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…or just as printed listings

Copyright reform

  • 1974: CONTU formed, decides programs are subject to copyright
  • 1976: Copyright Act of 1976: programs are literary works

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However, the Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works formed in 1974, has decided that ‘computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author’s original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright’. This decision followed by the US Copyright Act of 1976 giving computer programs the status of ‘literary works’.

That made a lot of people upset

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This development has made a lot of people unhappy. One of the unhappy people was Richard Stallman.

LISP machine

LISP machine

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Richard Stallman was one of the people who worked at the MIT artificial intelligence lab on one of these.

LISP

LISP lists

Program example:

1 (defun factorial (n)
2   (if (= n 0) 1
3       (* n (factorial (- n 1)))))

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Hacker ethic

…You would devise your own solution—or “hack.” And then you’d share it with everyone else. Because… why not?

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At MIT AI lab, the culture of sharing was prevalent, part of the so-called hacker ethic

Xerox 9700

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One day, Richard Stallman was very unhappy about the new laser printer. The printer, just as the old one, was jamming paper.

DigiBarn Computer Museum, CC BY-SA-NC

Can I haz code? No!

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When this happened before, Stallman modified the printer driver to detect the jam and report it, but when he attempted to do this for the new printer, his request for the source code was rejected.

Richard "Che" Stallman

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This is what they created!

GNU and FSF

  • 1983: GNU announcement
  • 1985: The GNU Manifesto
  • 1985: The Free Software Foundation

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In 1983, Stallman, fed up with software coming with restrictions attached, publishes GNU Manifesto, a document which set out a plan to develop a free operating system, GNU. Several years later, he’s published a detailed definition of that freedom

The Four Freedoms

  1. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
  2. The freedom to study how the program works and change it.
  3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
  4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Presenter Notes

Software providing those four freedoms to its users is called free software.

The GNU operating system

  • Fully free software
  • General Public License:
    • copyleft
    • share-alike
    • doesn’t allow further restrictions

Presenter Notes

The GNU operating system was meant to be fully free software. To protect software freedom, Stallman wrote a new license in 1989, the General Public License. This license uses the legal framework of copyright to guarantee the users can enjoy the four freedoms. It also guarantees all derivative works use the same license, and no restrictions can be added on top of the license; it explicitly makes them void.

GNU in 1991

  • Major components have been developed
  • Kernel missing:
    • Hurd: incomplete and unavailable
    • BSD: involved in a lawsuit, status unclear

Presenter Notes

By 1991, the GNU project completed the development of all major components of the operating system but the kernel, a core part of the operating system that manages the hardware, resources, devices… basically, has complete control over everything in the system.

Hurd was incomplete and unavailable, and another free OS, the Berkeley Software Distribution was involved in a lawsuit, and its status was unclear at the time.

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu)

— comp.os.minix, 25 August 1991

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Linux

  • Started by Linus Torvalds in April 1991
  • Could do graphics by the end of the year
  • Free software under the GPL
  • Just what was missing from GNU

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Linus has been developing the new OS — Linux — since April that year. The GNU Project soon embraced Linux, since own kernel, Hurd, was incomplete and unavailable.

GNU + Linux

GNU and a penguin

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1993: Debian

  • A distribution founded by Ian Murdock
  • Built on GNU and Linux, completely free
  • Comes with an installer
  • Comes with a package manager

Ian Murdock

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In 1993, Ian Murdock announces the Debian project, which aims to build an operating system built on GNU and Linux. In Linux world, that’s what a distribution is.

Ian Murdock (1973—2015)

What makes Debian different (2/3)

Huge community

Debian Developer Map 2016

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Second, it is run by a community of independent developers all around the world. There’s no single company behind it, so interests of the projects can’t be compromised by the interests of the company shareholders.

Software freedom is a principal priority for Debian

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  • In 1996, Bruce Perens replaced Ian as the project leader
  • In 1997, Perens has proposed the Debian Social Contract to supplement the Debian Manifesto written by Murdock
  • The document sets out the moral principles of the Debian project
  • Ratified on 5 July 1997

Presenter Notes

Soon after Bruce Perens became the project leader, he has proposed a document which summarised the moral principles of the Debian project, supplementing the initial Debian Manifesto written by Murdock. The creation of the document was triggered by a discussion at Red Hat, a company behind a commercial Red Hat Linux distribution, where the idea for Red Hat to provide a set of guarantees it would always be committed to the ideals of free software was met with resistance. The document, ratified on 5 July 1997, was called the Debian Social Contact.

Social contract

  1. Debian will remain 100% free
  2. We will give back to the free software community
  3. We will not hide problems
  4. Our priorities are our users and free software
  5. Works that do not meet our free software standards

Presenter Notes

A part of the social contract is DFSG

Debian Free Software Guidelines

  1. Free Redistribution
  2. Source Code
  3. Derived Works
  4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code
  5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
  6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavour
  7. Distribution of License
  8. License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
  9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software

Presenter Notes

These criteria while similar to the Four Freedoms, are more practical since they are easier to test against: it can be difficult to determine exactly how the terms of a specific license map to the user’s freedoms. The Debian free software guidelines, on the contrary are more atomic, so it is easier to verify whether or not the license follows them. However, they define the same set of the licenses and the FSF’s Four Freedoms, with only minor differences.

FSF vs OSI?

How to promote free software?

  • 1998: Netscape to release their browser
    • predecessor to Mozilla and, later, Firefox
  • A group of people met at Los Altos to discuss the strategy to promote free software
  • The group discussed a new term for free software

Presenter Notes

In early 1998, a company called Netscape was about to release the source code of their browser under a free software license. A group of people, including Christine Peterson of Foresight Institute, met to discuss the promotion of free software to businesses, including Netscape.

Why new term?

  • Free: no cost or no restrictions?
  • Business people tend to ignore the philosophy
  • Something more clear was necessary

Presenter Notes

One of the topics was a new term to use because free software was a bit confusing to people not knowing about it: they would assume it was about the price. Usually, we say We mean free as in freedom, not free as in beer, but a new, clearer term was necessary.

Christine Peterson coins open source

Christine Peterson

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During one of the meetings Christine came up with open source, which, while not ideal, seemed to her as good enough. After having discussed it with other group members, the term was eventually accepted.

New movement: open source

  • Open Source Initiative was founded
  • Bruce Perens wrote the Open Source Definition
    • Based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines

Presenter Notes

A new movement was started, with Bruce Perens joining the effort and establishing an organisation, the Open Source Initiative. Bruce Perens wrote a document called Open Source Definition, based on the DFSG with references to Debian removed or replaced

The Open Source Definition

  1. Free Redistribution
  2. Source Code
  3. Derived Works
  4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code
  5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
  6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavour
  7. Distribution of License
  8. License Must Not Be Specific to Debian a Product
  9. License Must Not Contaminate Restrict Other Software
  10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

Presenter Notes

Free software definition:

  • Promotes the philosophy of freedom
  • Focuses on the rights of the user to use, study, modify, copy and redistribute the program for any purpose

Open source definition:

  • Promotes the practical values of software freedom and open development methodology
  • Focuses on the availability of the source code and unrestricted development

Both definition require allowing commercial use.

Despite the differences, both concepts define nearly the same set of software licenses. For all practical purposes, free software and open source software mean the same thing. The main difference is in the way they define this same thing.

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Free software = open source

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I don’t do opensource

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However, having initially praised open source, Richard Stallman later decided to reject it.

Free software vs open source

Philosophy

  • Open source movement: too pragmatic?
  • Free software movement: too idealist?

Presenter Notes

He says the campaign for open source gets too pragmatic and doesn’t promote the moral principles of free software. For free software campaigners, the movement’s ethical and social values are very important, and some, including Stallman, think all software should be free.

On the other hand, a lot of people love free software, but think that idea is way too radical. They accept the reality that a lot of software out there is non-free, but we can convince businesses to move to free software as much as possible. For those purposes, the concept of open source is often more useful, since it avoids telling people they’re doing immoral things.

Free software vs open source

Misunderstandings

  • Free as in free beer?
    • no: free as in freedom
  • Open as in open book?
    • no: has to comply with the definition
    • easier to abuse if you’re evil?

Presenter Notes

There’s a concern Stallman also mentions, that both terms have ways to be misunderstood, but the wrong meaning of open source doesn’t say anything about freedom. In practice, that leads to situations, when companies promote their software calling it open source, while not providing the source code under a free software license. One of the companies which used to do that was Microsoft in 2000s, which released software under a license which basically only allowed to look at it — provided you immediately forgot what you learnt from it. There more tricky situations, though.

Almost, but not quite

JSON License

The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Presenter Notes

This is discrimination against fields of endeavour: you are not allowed to do evil with this software. The author of the license, Douglas Crockford, who has also wrote JSMin, refused to change the license when was asked to.

Almost, but not quite

JSON License

<…> IBM, its customers, partners, and minions [permission] to use JSLint for evil

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He has, however, granted ‘IBM, its customers, partners, and minions’ permission ‘to use JSLint for evil’.

Minions

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Almost, but not quite

Do No Harm License

…based on the BSD 3-clause license, but with specific exclusions for using licensed code to promote or profit from: violence, hate and division, environmental destruction, abuse of human rights, the destruction of people’s physical and mental health…

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Why not?

The annotated version of the open source definition states:

We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.

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Pseudo open source

  • Creative Commons No Derivative/Non-Commercial
  • MongoDB SSPL
  • Redis Commons Clause
  • Open core: AGPL + copyright assignment + proprietary

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Thanks!

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