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GNU, Linux,
Free and Open Source Software.
©
Yash Nursinghdass – 2003
1. Introduction
This
text introduces the history of GNU/Linux, Free and Open
Source Software as well as their advantages in a succinct
manner. Strictly speaking, it would be more precise to begin
chronologically with GNU and Richard Stallman. However,
I have preferred to mention what is more familiar before
moving onto less known territory so as to enable the reader
to connect the dots himself/herself more easily.
2. Linus Torvalds and Linux
Linux is an Operating
System compatible with the Posix standard. Linux is an
O.S. that is very secure, very
fast, very robust, and above all, it is free and its source
code is freely available.
Linux was initially an Operating System kernel,
designed and developed originally solely by a young Finnish
student, Linus
Torvalds. In 1991, then aged 21, and in his second year
of Information Systems studies at the University of Helsinki,
Linus Torvalds began developing the Linux
kernel.
He started off on his own and on an affordable machine with
an Intel 386 processor. Later on, however, he decided to make
the kernel, as well as its source code, accessible to other
people freely by putting them on FTP sites.
The reasons that motivated Torvalds to develop
Linux were:
- The high cost of the hardware and software
necessary at the time to run a UNIX environment
- The inadequate features and the slow reaction
to positive feedback for the MINIX Operating system built
by University Professor, Andrew Tanenbaum. MINIX was mostly
used within academic circles.
- The great delays suffered by the project
of development of an Operating System for GNU, launched
nearly 9 years before by Richard Stallman.
The free availability of the source code to
the public had the result that a growing number of people
were offering either feedback in the form of verbal descriptions
or in the form of enhanced code to Linus. Ever since, the
Linux system has always been continuously improved this way
by the collaborative work of many people throughout the world.
These collaborators usually work voluntarily, often during
their spare time, and many do so for free.
More than ten years later, in our days, Linux
is a system which is widely used in all fields where these
characteristics are needed: dependability, security, robustness,
speed, an economical approach, together with the possibility
of customising the source code.
Linux can be found within commercial companies
like Boeing, Government infrastructures, the Educational sector,
and that of Research. N.A.S.A. also uses Linux.
Numerous enterprises have migrated their operations
and their software to Linux for its strengths like robustness,
security, and its positive economic impact on the bottom line.
Many CGI effects in recent Hollywood blockbusters have been
produced by software running on Linux. IBM is a great supporter
of Linux. Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP have all started migrating
their product lines onto Linux.
Links:
3. Richard Stallman, GNU
and the FSF
A particular license governs the use of the
Linux source code, the GPL. The acronym stands for the GNU
Public Licence, which stipulates, among other terms, that
whoever modifies the source code has the duty of injecting
the new source code back into the user community.
GNU
is a project that existed prior to the advent of Linux, and
launched by Richard
Stallman. Stallman was a Harvard student who also worked
for a long time in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,
the AI Lab. Within the AI Lab environment, there already existed
a culture of source code sharing, so that all employees could
bring their individual enhancements to benefit the community.
These collaborations, together with the approach of code sharing,
solved numerous problems with the hardware and the software
at the time. In 1983-1984, Richard Stallman built this approach
into a project, which became his life project, and in a way
his masterpiece. The idea of GNU is to produce and promote
a combination of Operating System and Free Software compatible
with UNIX, for free if possible, or for a nominal fee to all
those who would need such a system.
Within the GNU sphere, the notion of ‘Free’
as in ‘Free Software’ describes the following characteristics
for the user, who can:
- Give it to somebody else freely,
- Use part of it in another work, even in
a commercial one (provided the license allows this)
Richard Stallman went on to found the Free
Software Foundation, the FSF, specifically to promote the
notions of freedom associated to Free Software. From his own
individual effort, and later through the contribution of hundreds
of other persons throughout the world, the GNU Project grew
into a myriad of freely available software for the masses.
For instance, GNU Emacs, the customisable multi-editor, and
GCC, the set of GNU compilers, are software initially designed
and coded by Richard Stallman, but to which others have contributed
afterwards.
However, the Operating System planned by Richard
Stallman, the GNU Hurd, remained in development for very long,
which rendered his overarching project incomplete. Indeed,
even though GNU software were becoming more numerous and freely
available, one still needed the costly UNIX environments to
use them while Stallman wanted to democratise access to
both an Operating System and applications.
Links:
4. GNU/Linux, Internet
collaborations and other synergies.
Therefore, it is thanks to the fusion of the
concepts and applications of the GNU Project to the Linux
Operating System that Richard Stallman’s dream could materialise.
In fact, Stallman insists rightly, that what is commonly called
a Linux distribution, should be more correctly named a GNU/Linux
system.
A Linux distribution is in reality, a collection
of GNU Software with the Linux Operating System, generally
regrouped and distributed freely (FTP, CDROMS) or commercially
(often in a box with CDROMS and printed manuals) by teams
or by companies like Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc...
The advent of Linux also strongly benefited
from the possibilities of distant collaboration offered by
the pre-Web Internet core during the 1983-1995 period (e.g.
mailing lists, Usenet, FTP, etc...). More recently, the development
of open source projects has also relied on web-enabled collaborative
frameworks like Sourceforge and Discussion Forums.
5. Eric Raymond and 'Open
Source' Software.
Eric
Raymond is one of the collaborators to the GNU project.
Actually, he developed the SendMail software. In addition,
he is a fine observer of the collaborative development process
that is specific to the GNU/Linux, Free and Open Source Software
realm.
In his many texts available online, among
which "The Cathedral and The Bazaar", he describes
his view of why Open Source succeed where others fail. In
his opinion, the approach of code sharing and open collaboration
has enabled the development of the complex ensemble GNU/Linux.
This is to be contrasted with many commercial companies that
have whole development teams which falter over the rising
complexity of software systems.
In other words, Eric Raymond believes that
what explains the greater dependability, security and robustness
of the software developed with this particular collaborative
approach, is precisely the open collaborative development
model with the freely available source code. According to
him, this is partly explained because there is a growing number
of collaborators. Hence, any bug will most probably be trivial
and easily solvable to at least one or some of the collaborators.
And within traditional software development in commercial
endeavours, while the development times can be estimated,
the time taken for the discovery and elimination of bugs often
remains unknown.
In reality, there are examples whereby some
bugs linked to security were eliminated within a one-day period,
thanks to one or more collaborators via the Internet. This
great reactivity is to be contrasted with a commercial company
who will first deny the existence of the bug, and later take
a timeframe of about two weeks to solve the problem. In the
meantime, the system user finds himself stuck with a vulnerable
environment.
In 1998, Netscape announced that the source
code of its web browser would be made available freely. Raymond
interprets this as the first example of consideration - by
a commercial company - of the superiority of the Open Source
Development and code-sharing model (as promoted by Stallman,
Torvalds and the other numerous collaborators of the GNU/Linux
environment).
Furthermore, he realised that it became necessary
to better formalise and express the Open Source concepts because
he extrapolated that in the future, there would be more close
collaborations between commercial companies and the mostly
altruistic and non-business oriented collaborators of the
GNU/Linux project. He therefore decided to adopt the terms
"Open Source", rather than the "Free Software"
championed by Richard Stallman. Apart from certain fine print
details, globally, these terms can be interchanged without
any problem in many cases. However, it seems the term "Open
Source" is more common these days than "Free Software".
Eric Raymond, therefore, launched "The
Open Source Initiative", an organisation which describes
and promotes the advantages of Open Source Software.
Links:
6. GNU/Linux in Mauritius
GNU/Linux is present in Mauritius in various
sectors. However, it is probable that GNU/Linux is subject
to a weak visibility. It is with the perspective of making
people more cognisant with these subjects: the Linux Operating
System, the GNU applications, Free Software and Open Source
that this text has been written.
The advantages for various sectors of the
country, or for specific and strategic projects are numerous.
Let's take the Cybercity initiative as an example: all GNU/Linux
products are strongly based on Open Protocols and Open Standards
that are at the heart of Internet communication. Better still,
studies have shown that some of the implementations of standard
protocols and in the GNU/Linux products are the best in the
world (e.g. the TCP stack).
This means that GNU/Linux adoption better
prepares the country's integration into the new world-scale
economy, of which a great component is e-commerce via Internet,
by going through an optimised economic investment. This, especially
at a time when commercial companies are known for their monopolistic
practices, their goals being to continually raise their software
product prices, or lock-in the users within either exploitative
licences or non-standard/closed protocols.
It is especially important to do a proper
evaluation for specific and strategic projects within the
Government because costs are often transmitted onto the citizens.
Governments of various foreign countries have either decided
to make strong evaluations of the GNU/Linux alternatives or
decided to adopt them altogether within their projects or
within their infrastructure. Countries which have considered
GNU/Linux or are using Open Source software are: Brazil, Peru,
France, Germany, USA, China, South Africa, England, Vietnam,
India, and others.
If you are within the Government, the Private
Sector, the field of Education, or a home user, for more information
about GNU/Linux, Free Software and Open Source Software, it
is highly advised to regularly visit the MLUG web site (see
below).
The local GNU/Linux landscape consists, among
others, of:
1. The Mauritius Linux User Group (also known
as Linux User Group of Mauritius), for which this text was
created.
One can visit the website or subscribe to
the mailing list at M.L.U.G.
2. Linux User Group of the University of Mauritius
3. IBL, representing the company Red Hat which
sells a well-known GNU/Linux distribution, and partner of
IBM, a huge promoter and vendor of Linux products
4. Tuxcafé, a cybercafe entirely built
with machines running GNU/Linux
5. Mauritians Using Linux Group or M.U.L.G.
Links:
More resources on Linux
in Government:
Linux and Microsoft:
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