History and Definition

MUCH more than Linux:

Open Source/Free Software is not some seperate world... you are using OS/FS all the time:

For instance;
 

Plus many "grey" areas, such as MAC OS X - a propriatary front end on a unix core.
 

The basic definition as shared by FS and OS is very simple (though as we shall see, the history and definitions become quite complex and non-linear).

                                    Free as in Freedom, not as in price.  That the knowledge (the souce code) should be freely availabe to empower and encourage innovation

Here's the core of the free software definition:

OS/FS is very much about working processes and cultures of production and distribution.
It is not NECESSARILY  overlaid with any ethical or moral position.
 
 

History
 

In US/Europe: 2 main influences:

Outside US/Europe the deployment of open source and the cultures being built around it might be said to have additional precursors and influences

eg.  Ravi Sundaram "Recycling Modernity: Pirate Electronic Cultures in India"
        see also Linux in India Resources: http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
 

A brief history of UNIX and Linux:

1969 -70: Unix  OS developed at AT& T Bell Labs.  Written in C: became the first widely used operating system that could switch between different hardwares.
1979: V7 edition of Unix; "grandfather of all extant Unix systems"

Now: things become convoluted.
 


AT&T mostly won the "standards wars", so most hardware vendors switched to System V, but the resulting system was very much a merger: each varient adopted many features of the other. BSD branch became widely used for research, and for single-purpose servers.

Now; many Unix varients:

eg.

http://linuxcom/howto/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/history.html
 

1984: Richard Stalman's Free Software Foundation (FSF) began the GNU project:  "GNU's not Unix" - to create a free version of the Unix OS.

                                            (Free as in software that can be freely used, read, modified and redistributed without payment of restriction)

FSF built array of useful tools and components, editors (emacs), compilers (gcc).. but had trouble developing an OS kernel of its own.

1991: Linus Torvalds begins developing and OS kernal.  This combined with FSF material and some BSD material evolved into a useful OS.  Some like to use the "correct" term: GNU/Linux which acknowleges its hybrid origins.

Since then: different organisations ahve combined available components differently, and provide different services around them.

Common Distributions include: