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110-561: The York Haskell Compiler ( Yhc ) is a no longer maintained open source bytecode compiler for the functional programming language Haskell ; it primarily targets the Haskell '98 standard. It is one of the four main Haskell compilers (behind GHC , Hugs and nhc98 ). Yhc is based on the nhc98 Haskell compiler, and is intended eventually to be a more portable , cleaner, better performing rewrite of nhc98 with more and better features. In particular, Yhc features integrated support for Hat ,
220-406: A Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program to support open source innovation. The adoption of open-source software by industry is increasing over time. OSS is popular in several industries such as telecommunications , aerospace , healthcare , and media & entertainment due to the benefits it provides. Adoption of OSS is more likely in larger organizations and is dependent on
330-408: A big step backward with respect to paper books by being less easy to use, copy, lend to others or sell, also mentioning that Amazon e-books cannot be bought anonymously. His short story " The Right to Read " provides a picture of a dystopian future if the right to share books is impeded. He objects to many of the terms within typical end-user license agreements that accompany e-books. He discourages
440-541: A bug needs to be fixed in their project. This is established by communicating with the OSS community through avenues such as bug reporting and tracking or mailing lists and project pages. Next, OSS developers select or are assigned to a task and identify a solution. Because there are often many different possible routes for solutions in OSS, the best solution must be chosen with careful consideration and sometimes even peer feedback . The developer then begins to develop and commit
550-400: A cell phone due to the lack of phones running entirely on free software. He also avoids using a key card to enter his office building since key card systems track each location and time that someone enters the building using a card. He usually does not browse the web directly from his personal computer. Instead, he uses GNU Womb's grab-url-from-mail utility, an email-based proxy which downloads
660-507: A copy of the license is provided to recipients with the code. One important legal precedent for open-source software was created in 2008, when the Jacobson v Katzer case enforced terms of the Artistic license , including attribution and identification of modifications. The ruling of this case cemented enforcement under copyright law when the conditions of the license were not followed. Because of
770-518: A doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory . While working (starting in 1975) as a research assistant at MIT under Gerry Sussman , Stallman published a paper (with Sussman) in 1977 on an AI truth maintenance system , called dependency-directed backtracking . The paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems . As of 2009 ,
880-449: A fellow AI Lab hacker, founded Lisp Machines, Inc. (LMI) to market Lisp machines , which he and Tom Knight designed at the lab. Greenblatt rejected outside investment, believing that the proceeds from the construction and sale of a few machines could be profitably reinvested in the growth of the company. In contrast, the other hackers felt that the venture capital -funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, hackers from
990-700: A judge would ask whether it was "really" one program, rather than how the parts were labeled. Therefore, Stallman sent a message back to Jobs which said they believed Jobs' plan was not allowed by the GPL, which resulted in NeXT releasing the Objective-C front end under GPL. For a period of time, Stallman used a notebook from the One Laptop per Child program. Stallman's computer is a refurbished ThinkPad X200 with Libreboot (a free BIOS replacement), and Trisquel GNU/Linux . Before
1100-405: A modified GCC in two parts, one part under GPL and the other part, an Objective-C preprocessor under a proprietary license. Stallman initially thought this would be legal, but since he also thought it would be "very undesirable for free software", he asked a lawyer for advice. The response he got was that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them, and
1210-454: A new bug. Early releases : The first version of the software should be released as early as possible so as to increase one's chances of finding co-developers early. Frequent integration: Code changes should be integrated (merged into a shared code base) as often as possible so as to avoid the overhead of fixing a large number of bugs at the end of the project life cycle. Some open-source projects have nightly builds where integration
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#17330852563271320-453: A password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password, with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to re-enable anonymous access to the systems. Around 20 percent of the users followed his advice at the time, although passwords ultimately prevailed. Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward. In
1430-508: A public good as it is available to everyone and does not decrease in value for others when downloaded by one person. Open source software is unique in that it becomes more valuable as it is used and contributed to, instead of diminishing the resource. This is explained by concepts such as investment in reputation and network effects . The economic model of open-source software can be explained as developers contribute work to projects, creating public benefits. Developers choose projects based on
1540-447: A similar way user scripts and custom style sheets allow for web sites, and eventually publish the modification as a fork for users with similar preferences, and directly submit possible improvements as pull requests . The Open Source Initiative 's (OSI) definition is recognized by several governments internationally as the standard or de facto definition. OSI uses The Open Source Definition to determine whether it considers
1650-592: A software license open source. The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines , written and adapted primarily by Perens . Perens did not base his writing on the "four freedoms" from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which were only widely available later. Under Perens' definition, open source is a broad software license that makes source code available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent restrictions on
1760-489: A summer camp, he read manuals for the IBM 7094 . From 1967 to 1969, Stallman attended a Columbia University Saturday program for high school students. He was also a volunteer laboratory assistant in the biology department at Rockefeller University . Although he was interested in mathematics and physics , his supervising professor at Rockefeller thought he showed promise as a biologist. His first experience with actual computers
1870-592: A text editor in APL and a preprocessor for the PL/I programming language on the IBM System/360 . As a first-year student at Harvard University in fall 1970, Stallman was known for his strong performance in Math 55 . He was happy, "For the first time in my life, I felt I had found a home at Harvard." In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at
1980-404: A user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use. Richard Greenblatt ,
2090-422: A victory for OSS supporters. In open-source communities, instead of owning the software produced, the producer owns the development of the evolving software. In this way, the future of the software is open, making ownership or intellectual property difficult within OSS. Licensing and branding can prevent others from stealing it, preserving its status as a public good . Open source software can be considered
2200-452: A world of spin-meisters and multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns. In 2018, Stallman instituted "Kind Communication Guidelines" for the GNU project to help its mailing list discussions remain constructive while avoiding explicitly promoting diversity. In October 2019, a public statement signed by 33 maintainers of the GNU project asserted that Stallman's behaviour had "undermined a core value of
2310-658: Is a crime, not the issue of charging for software. Stallman's texinfo is a GPL replacement, loosely based on Scribe; the original version was finished in 1986. In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer , the Xerox 9700 . Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged
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#17330852563272420-552: Is a development model." Thus, he believes that the use of the term will not inform people of the freedom issues, and will not lead to people valuing and defending their freedom. Two alternatives which Stallman does accept are software libre and unfettered software , but free software is the term he asks people to use in English. For similar reasons, he argues for the term proprietary software or non-free software rather than closed-source software , when referring to software that
2530-404: Is a good or service, what can be considered a modification, governance through contract vs license, ownership and right of use. While there have been developments on these issues, they often lead to even more questions. The existence of these uncertainties in regulation has a negative impact on industries involved in technologies as a whole. Within the legal history of software as a whole, there
2640-539: Is absolutely another terrific way that individuals and organizations choose to contribute to open source projects. Groups like Open Collective provide a means for individuals to contribute monthly to supporting their favorite projects. Organizations like the Sovereign Tech Fund is able to contribute to millions to supporting the tools the German Government uses. The National Science Foundation established
2750-628: Is an American free software movement activist and programmer . He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software which ensures these freedoms is termed free software . Stallman launched the GNU Project , founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in October 1985, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs , and wrote all versions of
2860-453: Is associated with proponents of strong copyright), or a convenient anonymous micropayment system for people to support authors directly. He indicates that no form of non-commercial sharing of copies should be considered a copyright violation. He has advocated for civil disobedience in a comment on Ley Sinde . He has reportedly refused to autograph anything bearing a '©' symbol, in line with his views. Stallman has helped and supported
2970-515: Is best summed up by the FSF Defective by Design campaign. In the talks, he makes proposals for a "reduced copyright" and suggests a 10-year limit on copyright. He suggests that, instead of restrictions on sharing, authors be supported using a tax, with revenues distributed among them based on cubic roots of their popularity to ensure that "fairly successful non-stars" receive a greater share than they do now (compare with private copying levy which
3080-544: Is done automatically . Several versions: There should be at least two versions of the software. There should be a buggier version with more features and a more stable version with fewer features. The buggy version (also called the development version) is for users who want the immediate use of the latest features and are willing to accept the risk of using code that is not yet thoroughly tested. The users can then act as co-developers, reporting bugs and providing bug fixes. High modularization: The general structure of
3190-404: Is innovative since open-source programs are the product of collaboration among a large number of different programmers. The mix of divergent perspectives, corporate objectives, and personal goals speeds up innovation. Moreover, free software can be developed in accordance with purely technical requirements. It does not require thinking about commercial pressure that often degrades the quality of
3300-560: Is legal variety in this definition. Some jurisdictions attempt to expand or reduce this conceptualization for their own purposes. For example, The European Court of Justice defines a computer program as not including the functionality of a program, the programing language , or the format of data files. By limiting protections of the different aspects of software, the law favors an open-source approach to software use. The US especially has an open approach to software, with most open-source licenses originating there. However, this has increased
3410-473: Is not free software. Stallman asks that the term GNU/Linux , which he pronounces / ɡ n uː s l æ ʃ ˈ l ɪ n ə k s / GNOO SLASH LIN -əks , be used to refer to the operating system created by combining the GNU system and the kernel Linux. Stallman refers to this operating system as "a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer". He claims that the connection between
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3520-453: Is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy. He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral value , and not merely for pragmatic reasons such as possibly developing technically superior software. Eric S. Raymond , one of the creators of the open-source movement , argues that moral arguments, rather than pragmatic ones, alienate potential allies and hurt
3630-468: Is theoretically challenging in economic models, it is explainable as a sustainable social activity that requires resources. These resources include time, money, technology and contributions. Many developers have used technology funded by organizations such as universities and governments, though these same organizations benefit from the work done by OSS. As OSS grows, hybrid systems containing OSS and proprietary systems are becoming more common. Throughout
3740-657: The GNU General Public License . Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to write a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software. With that he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including among others, the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU Debugger , and GNU Emacs text editor. Stallman pioneered
3850-521: The GNU Manifesto , which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix . The name GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix". Soon after, he started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman was
3960-574: The International Music Score Library Project get back online, after it had been taken down on October 19, 2007, following a cease and desist letter from Universal Edition . Stallman mentions the dangers some e-books bring compared to paper books, with the example of the Amazon Kindle e-reader that prevents the copying of e-books and allows Amazon to order automatic deletion of a book. He says that such e-books present
4070-567: The Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal. Stallman remained head of the GNU Project, and in 2021 returned to the FSF board of directors and others. Stallman was born March 16, 1953 in New York City , to a family of Jewish heritage. He had a troublesome relationship with his parents and did not feel he had a proper home. He was interested in computers at a young age; when he was a pre-teen at
4180-646: The Lisp machine operating system (the CONS of 1974–1976 and the CADR of 1977–1979—this latter unit was commercialized by Symbolics and Lisp Machines , Inc. (LMI) starting around 1980). He became an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab, which at that time was funded primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ). When MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) installed
4290-580: The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , and became a regular in the hacker community, where he was usually known by his initials, RMS , which he used in his computer accounts. Stallman received a bachelor's degree in physics ( magna cum laude ) from Harvard in 1974. He considered staying on at Harvard, but instead decided to enroll as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He pursued
4400-447: The copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative, public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration , meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine
4510-889: The distributed version control system (DVCS) are examples of tools, often open source, that help manage the source code files and the changes to those files for a software project in order to foster collaboration. CVCS are centralized with a central repository while DVCS are decentralized and have a local repository for every user. concurrent versions system (CVS) and later Subversion (SVN) and Git are examples of CVCS. The repositories are hosted and published on source-code-hosting facilities such as GitHub . Open-source projects use utilities such as issue trackers to organize open-source software development. Commonly used bug trackers include Bugzilla and Redmine . Tools such as mailing lists and IRC provide means of coordination and discussion of bugs among developers. Project web pages, wiki pages, roadmap lists and newsgroups allow for
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4620-458: The Bazaar , open-source influential contributor Eric S. Raymond suggests a model for developing OSS known as the bazaar model. Raymond likens the development of software by traditional methodologies to building a cathedral, with careful isolated work by individuals or small groups. He suggests that all software should be developed using the bazaar style, with differing agendas and approaches. In
4730-434: The FSF call it GNU/Linux . This has been a longstanding naming controversy in the free software community. Stallman argues that not using GNU in the name of the operating system unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project and harms the sustainability of the free software movement by breaking the link between the software and the free software philosophy of the GNU project. Stallman's influences on hacker culture include
4840-438: The GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people refer to the combination as merely Linux. Starting around 2003, he began also using the term GNU+Linux , which he pronounces / ɡ n uː p l ʌ s ˈ l ɪ n ə k s / GNOO PLUS LIN -əks , to prevent others from pronouncing the phrase GNU/Linux as / ɡ n uː ˈ l ɪ n ə k s / GNOO LIN -əks , which would erroneously imply that
4950-469: The GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users" and called for "GNU maintainers to collectively decide about the organization of the project". The statement was published soon after Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his "visiting scientist" role at MIT in September 2019. In spite of that, Stallman remained head of the GNU project. Stallman has written many essays on software freedom, and has been an outspoken political campaigner for
5060-407: The GNU system had been completed. Stallman was responsible for contributing many necessary tools, including a text editor ( GNU Emacs ), compiler ( GCC ), debugger ( GNU Debugger ), and a build automator ( GNU make ). The notable omission was a kernel . In 1990, members of the GNU project began using Carnegie Mellon's Mach microkernel in a project called GNU Hurd , which has yet to achieve
5170-568: The Haskell tracer. The Yhc project uses Darcs for version control . It was originally developed at the Department of Computer Science at the University of York in the UK. This programming-language -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Open-source software Open-source software ( OSS ) is computer software that is released under a license in which
5280-630: The Public Interest . Within Europe some notable organizations are Free Software Foundation Europe , open-source projects EU (OSP) and OpenForum Europe (OFE). One Australian organization is Linux Australia while Asia has Open source Asia and FOSSAsia . Free and open source software for Africa (FOSSFA) and OpenAfrica are African organizations and Central and South Asia has such organizations as FLISOL and GRUP de usuarios de software libre Peru . Outside of these, many more organizations dedicated to
5390-680: The ThinkPad X200, Stallman used a Thinkpad T400s with Libreboot and Trisquel GNU/Linux. And before the T400s, Stallman used a ThinkPad X60, and even further back in time, a Lemote Yeeloong netbook (using the same company's Loongson processor) which he chose because, like the X200, X60 and the T400s, it could run with free software at the BIOS level, stating "freedom is my priority. I've campaigned for freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for
5500-483: The United States government may encourage the use of software as a service because this would allow them to access users' data without needing a search warrant . He denies being an anarchist despite his wariness of some legislation and the fact that he has "advocated strongly for user privacy and his own view of software freedom". Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about
5610-460: The United States has focused on national security in regard to open-source software implementation due to the perceived threat of the increase of open-source software activity in countries like China and Russia, with the Department of Defense considering multiple criteria for using OSS. These criteria include: if it comes from and is maintained by trusted sources, whether it will continue to be maintained, if there are dependencies on sub-components in
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#17330852563275720-473: The advancement of open-source software exist. FOSS products are generally licensed under two types of licenses: permissive licensing and copyleft licensing . Both of these types of licenses are different than proprietary licensing in that they can allow more users access to the software and allow for the creation of derivative works as specified by the terms of the specific license, as each license has its own rules. Permissive licenses allow recipients of
5830-402: The bazaar model should exhibit the following patterns: Users should be treated as co-developers: The users are treated like co-developers and so they should have access to the source code of the software. Furthermore, users are encouraged to submit additions to the software, code fixes for the software, bug reports , documentation, etc. Having more co-developers increases the rate at which
5940-466: The code facilitates public trust in the software. Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2024 estimate of the value of open-source software to firms is $ 8.8 trillion, as firms would need to spend 3.5 times the amount they currently do without the use of open source software. Open-source code can be used for studying and allows capable end users to adapt software to their personal needs in
6050-414: The code. The code is then tested and reviewed by peers. Developers can edit and evolve their code through feedback from continuous integration . Once the leadership and community are satisfied with the whole project, it can be partially released and user instruction can be documented. If the project is ready to be released, it is frozen, with only serious bug fixes or security repairs occurring. Finally,
6160-427: The company's IT usage, operating efficiencies, and the productivity of employees. Industries are likely to use OSS due to back-office functionality, sales support, research and development, software features, quick deployment, portability across platforms and avoidance of commercial license management. Additionally, lower cost for hardware and ownership are also important benefits. Organizations that contribute to
6270-723: The concept of copyleft , which uses the principles of copyright law to preserve the right to use, modify, and distribute free software. He is the main author of free software licenses which describe those terms, most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license. In 1989, he co-founded the League for Programming Freedom . Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against software patents , digital rights management (which he refers to as digital restrictions management, calling
6380-467: The development and expansions of free and open-source software movements exist all over the world. These organizations are dedicated to goals such as teaching and spreading technology. As listed by a former vice president of the Open Source Initiative , some American organizations include the Free Software Foundation , Software Freedom Conservancy , the Open Source Initiative and Software in
6490-461: The distribution of project information that focuses on end users. The basic roles OSS participants can fall into multiple categories, beginning with leadership at the center of the project who have control over its execution. Next are the core contributors with a great deal of experience and authority in the project who may guide the other contributors. Non-core contributors have less experience and authority, but regularly contribute and are vital to
6600-549: The end goal of removing code secrecy. In February 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid "visiting scientist" in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory . Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence. Stallman announced
6710-601: The focus on patent rights within these licenses, which has seen backlash from the OSS community, who prefer other forms of IP protection. Another issue includes technological protection measures (TPM) and digital rights management (DRM) techniques which were internationally legally recognized and protected in the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty . Open source software proponents disliked these technologies as they constrained end-users potentially beyond copyright law. Europe responded to such complaints by putting TPM under legal controls, representing
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#17330852563276820-523: The free software movement since the early 1990s. The speeches he has regularly given are titled The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement , The Dangers of Software Patents , and Copyright and Community in the Age of Computer Networks . In 2006 and 2007, during the eighteen month public consultation for the drafting of version 3 of the GNU General Public License, he added a fourth topic explaining
6930-566: The government of the Indian State of Kerala , he persuaded officials to discard proprietary software, such as Microsoft's, at state-run schools. This has resulted in a landmark decision to switch all school computers in 12,500 high schools from Windows to a free software operating system. After personal meetings, Stallman obtained positive statements about the free software movement from the then-president of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam , French 2007 presidential candidate Ségolène Royal , and
7040-415: The importance of terminology, are a source of regular misunderstanding and friction with parts of the free software and open-source communities . After initially accepting the concept, Stallman rejects a common alternative term , open-source software , because it does not call to mind what Stallman sees as the value of the software: freedom . He wrote, "Free software is a political movement; open source
7150-420: The inaccurate wording. Minsky was not accused of "assault", and from the victims' testimonies it was not clear whether Minsky had committed "assault", and Stallman argued that "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to conceal that from most of his associates". When challenged by other members of
7260-518: The kernel Linux is maintained by the GNU project. The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds , has publicly said that he objects to modification of the name and that the rename "is their [the FSF ] confusion not ours". Stallman professes admiration for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden . He has spoken against government and corporate surveillance on many occasions. He refers to mobile phones as "portable surveillance and tracking devices ", refusing to own
7370-588: The lab's community. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers. Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to share with their neighbors and be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He maintains that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are antisocial and unethical. The phrase "software wants to be free"
7480-421: The late 1970s and early 1980s, the hacker culture which Stallman thrived on began to fragment. To prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing source code and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such proprietary software had existed before, and it became apparent that it would become
7590-403: The latter camp founded Symbolics , with the aid of Russ Noftsker , an AI Lab administrator. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers including notable hacker Bill Gosper , who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics also forced Greenblatt to resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting
7700-480: The many benefits provided, a huge issue to be considered is cybersecurity . While accidental vulnerabilities are possible, so are attacks by outside agents. Because of these fears, governmental interest in contributing to the governance of software has become more prominent. However, these are the broad strokes of the issue, with each country having their own specific politicized interactions with open-source software and their goals for its implementation. For example,
7810-402: The maturity level required for full POSIX compliance. In 1991, Linus Torvalds , a Finnish student, used the GNU's development tools to produce the free monolithic Linux kernel . The existing programs from the GNU project were readily ported to run on the resultant platform. Most sources use the name Linux to refer to the general-purpose operating system thus formed, while Stallman and
7920-649: The means of inviting the public to contribute articles. The resulting GNUPedia was eventually retired in favour of the emerging Misplaced Pages , which had similar aims and was enjoying greater success. Stallman was on the Advisory Council of Latin American television station teleSUR from its launch but resigned in February 2011, criticizing pro-Gaddafi propaganda during the Arab Spring . In August 2006, at his meetings with
8030-560: The mid 2000s, more and more tech companies have begun to use OSS. For example, Dell's move of selling computers with GNU/Linux already installed. Microsoft itself has launched a Linux-based operating system despite previous animosity with the OSS movement. Despite these developments, these companies tend to only use OSS for certain purposes, leading to worries that OSS is being taken advantage of by corporations and not given anything in return. While many governments are interested in implementing and promoting open-source software due to
8140-467: The more common term misleading), and other legal and technical systems which he sees as taking away users' freedoms. That includes software license agreements , non-disclosure agreements , activation keys , dongles , copy restriction , proprietary formats , and binary executables without source code . In September 2019, Stallman resigned as president of the FSF and left his visiting scientist role at MIT after making controversial comments about
8250-580: The name POSIX and the Emacs editor. On Unix systems, GNU Emacs's popularity rivaled that of another editor vi , spawning an editor war . Stallman's take on this was to canonize himself as St. IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs and acknowledge that "vi vi vi is the editor of the beast ", while "using a free version of vi is not a sin ; it is a penance ". In 1992, developers at Lucid Inc. doing their own work on Emacs clashed with Stallman and ultimately forked
8360-555: The nonsalaried president of the FSF, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in Massachusetts . Stallman popularized the concept of copyleft , a legal mechanism to protect the modification and redistribution rights for free software. It was first implemented in the GNU Emacs General Public License, and in 1989 the first program-independent GNU General Public License (GPL) was released. By then, much of
8470-536: The norm. This shift in the legal characteristics of software was a consequence triggered by the US Copyright Act of 1976 . When Brian Reid in 1979 placed time bombs in the Scribe markup language and word processing system to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed it "a crime against humanity". During an interview in 2008, he clarified that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes
8580-505: The number of people employed in the IT sector. OSS can be highly reliable when it has thousands of independent programmers testing and fixing bugs of the software. Open source is not dependent on the company or author that originally created it. Even if the company fails, the code continues to exist and be developed by its users. OSS is flexible because modular systems allow programmers to build custom interfaces, or add new abilities to it and it
8690-435: The perceived benefits or costs, such as improved reputation or value of the project. The motivations of developers can come from many different places and reasons, but the important takeaway is that money is not the only or even most important incentivization . Because economic theory mainly focuses on the consumption of scarce resources, the OSS dynamic can be hard to understand. In OSS, producers become consumers by reaping
8800-532: The plan for the GNU operating system in September 1983 on several ARPANET mailing lists and USENET . He started the project on his own and describes: "As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it." In 1985, Stallman published
8910-418: The police being called. AMD has since acquired ATI and has taken steps to make their hardware documentation available for use by the free software community. Stallman has characterized Steve Jobs as having a "malign influence" on computing because of Jobs' leadership in guiding Apple to produce closed platforms . According to Stallman, while Jobs was at NeXT , Jobs asked Stallman if he could distribute
9020-404: The potential to quicken innovation and create of social value. In France for instance, a policy that incentivized government to favor free open-source software increased to nearly 600,000 OSS contributions per year, generating social value by increasing the quantity and quality of open-source software. This policy also led to an estimated increase of up to 18% of tech startups and a 14% increase in
9130-447: The president of Ecuador Rafael Correa . Stallman has participated in protests about software patents, digital rights management , and proprietary software . Protesting against proprietary software in April 2006, Stallman held a "Don't buy from ATI , enemy of your freedom" placard at an invited talk given by an ATI compiler architect in the building where Stallman worked, resulting in
9240-574: The project is fully released and only changed through minor bug fixes. Open source implementation of a standard can increase adoption of that standard. This creates developer loyalty as developers feel empowered and have a sense of ownership of the end product. Moreover, lower costs of marketing and logistical services are needed for OSS. OSS can be a tool to promote a company's image, including its commercial products. The OSS development approach has helped produce reliable, high quality software quickly and inexpensively. Open source development offers
9350-759: The project's development. New contributors are the least experienced but with mentorship and guidance can become regular contributors. Some possible ways of contributing to open-source software include such roles as programming , user interface design and testing, web design , bug triage , accessibility design and testing, UX design , code testing, and security review and testing. However, there are several ways of contributing to OSS projects even without coding skills. For example, some less technical ways of participating are documentation writing and editing, translation , project management , event organization and coordination, marketing, release management, community management, and public relations and outreach. Funding
9460-488: The proposed changes. Stallman's staunch advocacy for free software inspired the creation of the Virtual Richard M. Stallman ( vrms ), software that analyzes the packages currently installed on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and reports those that are from the non-free tree. Stallman disagrees with parts of Debian's definition of free software. In 1999, Stallman called for development of a free online encyclopedia through
9570-431: The rewards of contributing to a project. For example, a developer becomes well regarded by their peers for a successful contribution to an OSS project. The social benefits and interactions of OSS are difficult to account for in economic models as well. Furthermore, the innovation of technology creates constantly changing value discussions and outlooks, making economic model unable to predict social behavior. Although OSS
9680-460: The sake of a more convenient computer." Stallman's Lemote was stolen from him in 2012 while he was in Argentina. Before Trisquel, Stallman has used the gNewSense operating system. Stallman has regularly given a talk entitled "Copyright vs. Community" where he reviews the state of digital rights management (DRM) and names many of the products and corporations which he boycotts. His approach to DRM
9790-445: The same license while weak copyleft licenses require the use of the same license only under certain conditions. Examples of this type of license include the GNU family of licenses , and the MPL and EPL licenses. The similarities between these two categories of licensing include that they provide a broad grant of copyright rights, require that recipients preserve copyright notices, and that
9900-500: The similarity of the Artistic license to other open-source software licenses, the ruling created a precedent that applied widely. Examples of free-software license / open-source licenses include Apache licenses , BSD licenses , GNU General Public Licenses , GNU Lesser General Public License , MIT License , Eclipse Public License and Mozilla Public License . Several gray areas exist within software regulation that have great impact on open-source software, such as if software
10010-439: The software "in any manner they see fit, without requiring that they pay the author(s) of the software a royalty or fee for engaging in the listed activities." Despite initially accepting it, Richard Stallman of the FSF now flatly opposes the term "Open Source" being applied to what they refer to as "free software". Although he agrees that the two terms describe "almost the same category of software", Stallman considers equating
10120-401: The software evolves. Linus's law states that given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow. This means that if many users view the source code, they will eventually find all bugs and suggest how to fix them. Some users have advanced programming skills, and furthermore, each user's machine provides an additional testing environment. This new testing environment offers the ability to find and fix
10230-495: The software into what would become XEmacs . The technology journalist Andrew Leonard has characterized what he sees as Stallman's uncompromising stubbornness as common among elite computer programmers: There's something comforting about Stallman's intransigence. Win or lose, Stallman will never give up. He'll be the stubbornest mule on the farm until the day he dies. Call it fixity of purpose, or just plain cussedness, his single-minded commitment and brutal honesty are refreshing in
10340-484: The software should be modular allowing for parallel development on independent components. Dynamic decision-making structure: There is a need for a decision-making structure, whether formal or informal, that makes strategic decisions depending on changing user requirements and other factors. Compare with extreme programming . The process of Open source development begins with a requirements elicitation where developers consider if they should add new features or if
10450-453: The software to implement the author's copyright rights without having to use the same license for distribution. Examples of this type of license include the BSD , MIT , and Apache licenses . Copyleft licenses are different in that they require recipients to use the same license for at least some parts of the distribution of their works. Strong copyleft licenses require all derivative works to use
10560-568: The software, component security and integrity, and foreign governmental influence. Another issue for governments in regard to open source is their investments in technologies such as operating systems , semiconductors , cloud , and artificial intelligence . These technologies all have implications for global cooperation, again opening up security issues and political consequences. Many countries have to balance technological innovation with technological dependence in these partnerships. For example, after China's open-source dependent company Huawei
10670-425: The software. Commercial pressures make traditional software developers pay more attention to customers' requirements than to security requirements, since such features are somewhat invisible to the customer. In open-source software development, tools are used to support the development of the product and the development process itself. Version control systems such as Centralized Version control system (CVCS) and
10780-540: The technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking. The technique of constraint recording , wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper. As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects like TECO and Emacs for the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS), as well as
10890-570: The term intellectual property is designed to confuse people, and is used to prevent intelligent discussion on the specifics of copyright , patent , trademark , and other areas of law by lumping together things that are more dissimilar than similar. He also argues that by referring to these laws as property laws, the term biases the discussion when thinking about how to treat these issues, writing: These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. Copyright law
11000-597: The terms incorrect and misleading. Stallman also opposes the professed pragmatism of the Open Source Initiative , as he fears that the free software ideals of freedom and community are threatened by compromising on the FSF's idealistic standards for software freedom. The FSF considers free software to be a subset of open-source software, and Richard Stallman explained that DRM software, for example, can be developed as open source, despite that it does not give its users freedom (it restricts them), and thus does not qualify as free software. In his 1997 essay The Cathedral and
11110-514: The traditional model of development, which he called the cathedral model, development takes place in a centralized way. Roles are clearly defined. Roles include people dedicated to designing (the architects), people responsible for managing the project, and people responsible for implementation. Traditional software engineering follows the cathedral model. The bazaar model, however, is different. In this model, roles are not clearly defined. Some proposed characteristics of software developed using
11220-437: The use and modification of the code. It is an explicit "feature" of open source that it puts very few restrictions on the use or distribution by any organization or user, in order to enable the rapid evolution of the software. According to Feller et al. (2005), the terms "free software" and "open-source software" should be applied to any "software products distributed under terms that allow users" to use, modify, and redistribute
11330-531: The use of several storage technologies such as DVD or Blu-ray video discs because the content of such media is encrypted. He considers manufacturers' use of encryption on non-secret data ( to force the user to view certain promotional material ) as a conspiracy. Stallman recognized the Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal to be a criminal act by Sony and supports a general boycott of Sony for its legal actions against George Hotz . Stallman has suggested that
11440-439: The webpage content and then emails it to the user. More recently, he said that he accesses all websites via Tor , except for Misplaced Pages (which generally disallows editing from Tor unless users have an IP block exemption ). In September 2019, it was learned that Jeffrey Epstein had made donations to MIT, and in the wake of this, MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito resigned. An internal MIT CSAIL listserv mailing list thread
11550-401: The world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He asks people to say free software and GNU/Linux , and to avoid the terms intellectual property and piracy (in relation to copying not approved by the publisher). One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout the article. Stallman argues that
11660-521: Was at the IBM New York Scientific Center when he was in high school. He was hired for the summer in 1970 after his senior year of high school, to write a numerical analysis program in Fortran . He completed the task after a couple of weeks ("I swore that I would never use FORTRAN again because I despised it as a language compared with other languages") and spent the rest of the summer writing
11770-490: Was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of a work of authorship or art. Patent law was intended to encourage publication of ideas, at the price of finite monopolies over these ideas–a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others. Trademark law was not intended to promote any business activity, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying. His requests that people use certain terms, and his ongoing efforts to convince people of
11880-404: Was much debate on whether to protect it as intellectual property under patent law , copyright law or establishing a unique regulation. Ultimately, copyright law became the standard with computer programs being considered a form of literary work, with some tweaks of unique regulation. Software is generally considered source code and object code , with both being protectable, though there
11990-435: Was prevented from using Google's Android system in 2019, they began to create their own alternative operating system: Harmony OS . Germany recently established a Sovereign Tech Fund , to help support the governance and maintenance of the software that they use. Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( / ˈ s t ɔː l m ən / STAWL -mən ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms ,
12100-560: Was started to protest the coverup of MIT's connections to Epstein. In the thread, discussion had turned to deceased MIT professor Marvin Minsky , who was named by Virginia Giuffre as one of the people that Epstein had forced her to have sex with. Giuffre, a minor at the time, had been caught in Epstein's underage sex trafficking ring. In response to a comment saying that Minsky "is accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims", Stallman objected to
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