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Main Tuesday, July 15, 2008 (15:22:00)

Linux, Open Source, and the Free Software Movement

by personman - 1791 reads

It wasn't supposed to work you know...

There aren't managers bossing people around...and it isn't primarily concerned with the "finished product", or the "bottom line"(time and money). It Evolves... Decentralized... Utopian... Impossible... I presume some of us have heard this before?

In "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Eric S. Raymond counter-poses two software development models, "The Cathedral", symbolizing the rigor and hierarchy of the commercial model, and "The Bazaar", symbolizing an open system, based on constant peer-review, and in my mind, not too different from Peter Kropotkin's anarchist ideas of mutual aid.

In the documentary "Revolution OS", one learns that the ideas in Eric Raymond's paper influenced the people at Netscape, so much so that, besieged by the Microsoft monopoly, they saw releasing the browser code for Netscape Navigator under an Open-Source license as their best option.

In January of 1998, Netscape started the Open Source Mozilla project, which became a non-profit foundation in July of 2003. The mozilla project provides the core for arguably most of the free browsers available on the internet, including FireFox, and it's unbranded cousin, IceWeasel. The former has thoroughly trounced the monopoly in an area where they were thought to hold unchallenged dominance not so long ago, while the latter of these I'm using to enter this in to this website. (Which is also composed of free software.)

Viewed in this light, it seems that rather than being utopian or impossible, these ideas are always at work, if we open our eyes.

-Andy Rink

Andy Rink is a Microsoft Certified Professional (back in the 4.0 days) with 3 years of professional experience as a computer technician and systems administrator.

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