Re: OT: Wikipedia & open source [was: John Sterling]

BadgerBC wrote:
Kenny1111 wrote:


I will admit my real interest in it though is not just because I do
think the product is pretty good, though of course not perfect, but
because I'm interested in how far the collaborative-development method
can be extended. I think the existence of open-source software, which I
use almost exclusively at this point on my home computer, open
references, and other similar projects is really important, and should
result in a more serious re-evaluation of the theories behind copyright
law and the motivation to create that have long been accepted as truth
with little questioning.

That is interesting. How did the LINUX projects work? I mean before

Work in what way? I don't participate in programming, though I have
occasionally posted bug reports and in one case communicated with a
developer. Lots of open-source projects are listed on websites like
Sourceforge or Freshmeat. You can download the programs and post bug
reports or other suggestions.

Generally there are a few developers in charge of a project, who control
what goes into the main distribution of the project. Under standard
open-source licenses, anyone can of course make changes and redistribute
the program, but generally people who make changes that they intend to
be widespread will try to get them back into the official project, or at
least that's my impression.

In most distributions you have some sort of "package management system"
that checks "repositories" for updates to software. You can do this
through a command-line or a GUI. The GUI will list the software by type
and with descriptions, allowing you to select new software by checking a
box and then hitting "update" or "install." You can run updates
automatically also. There are generally official repositories for the
distributions, and then well-known and trusted 3d-party repositories.
It's the official changes and somewhat-final versions of software that
will get into these repositories (except for testing repositories which
will have some software at earlier stages in development).

For software not in repositories, you can either install from source
(basically typing in approximately 4 commands), or sometimes they will
have packages set up for various distributions, so it can be as easy as
1 command or double-clicking/downloading and running a file.

they started to commercialize like Red Hat or SUSE. Quality control

Redhat and other companies are more service providers than software
providers, even though they sell software. Selling open-source software
is fine; it is "free" as in "freedom," not "beer." The reason you go
through a company is to get their support, in general. You used to be
able to download Redhat instead of buying it. Now Redhat only makes
it's enterprise version in it's own name, but the Fedora project has
branched of off Redhat for free (as in beer) users.

My impression, and for everything I've written you should know I'm
relatively new to this all, is that a distribution is simply a
collection of various packages, many of which are the same from
distro-to-distro. There is some central organizer who decides what goes
into it, i.e., what is in the repositories, on the install CDs. Each
does some of it's own customization, especially to the desktop
environment (e.g., KDE, GNOME) it seems.

You aren't really choosing a company, though, as much as a user and
contributor base. I use Fedora and never deal with Redhat. I download
software than any Linux user can use, and if I have problems, I
communicate via newsgroups or message boards with other Fedora/Redhat
users. Especially for beginners, it's probably best to choose a distro
that has a large number of users. They also are updated on different
schedules, and have different views on how early to put new software
into the main repositories. I think Fedora is on a faster-paced upgrade
cycle than many. (I'm actually a full version behind at this point, as
my Linux partition on my 5-year-old computer is out of disk space, and
I'm going to get a new computer once I'm done with the bar and have time
to play around).

A great book that describes open-source development methods is "The
Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond. He discusses it from a
practical standpoint, include a discussion of the economics of a "gift
economy". He's a programmer by trade, not an economist (I think), so
you might find faults, but it's an interesting read.

If you are interested more in the ideology of the free software movement
(as in freedom), you can read "Free Software, Free Society" by Richard
Stallman (available online as a PDF for free, as in beer). Stallman is
quick to point out that the "free" software movement (as in freedom)
values freedom for it's own sake, while the open source movement seems
to be care more about the benefits of the development method, rather
than the freedoms that we all should have. His views are pretty
extreme, so be forewarned if you go ahead :-) At least some of it can
be convincing, but I have to admit I'm somewhat more moderate than he is.

obviously is the key issue with Wiki and I'd assume similar questions
must've risen regarding earlier versions of LINUX. What did people do
regarding something like BSD?

I've never used BSD, but the difference to me is the license. Linux (or
as Richard Stallman would insist, GNU/Linux) is licensed under the GNU
GPL, whose characteristic feature is that it is a "viral" license. If I
use any GPL'd code in my program, I must make it available on the same
terms it was available to me -- this is a way to preserve open source
code as open source, and prevent companies from taking the hard work of
programmers who GPL'd their code and turning it into proprietary/un-free
(as in freedom) software.

Under the BSD license you can basically do what you want. I've never
read the license, but it seems to be closer to putting something into
the public domain than the GPL. The GPL certain does *not* put software
into the public domain. It relies on copyright law in the very unique
fashion I described above (often referred to as "copyleft"). Thus, the
BSD license permitted back Mac to take FreeBSD (or was it OpenBSD?) and
create Darwin/OS X, and close up some of the code. That would be
impossible under the GPL.

As for what the BSD operating systems are like from a practical
standpoint in comparison to Linux, I don't know, except that I think
they have the reputation of being even more secure than Linux (which of
course has the reputation of being more secure than Windows). I have
the impression that there are definitely fans of BSD over Linux, but I'm
not sure what the reasons are.

Hopefully this cleared up some questions, since I'm not totally sure
exactly what you were asking. Also, I hope I didn't mis-characterize
anything. Maybe if Keith bothers to read this whole thing he can
provide some input, as I know he uses Linux, and has for longer than I have.
.

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