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   It's FOSS (itsfoss@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 19:19:37 JST It's FOSS

   While porting 'Space Travel' to the PDP-7, Ken Thompson developed an operating system that became the foundation of Unix. It played a crucial role in the development of Unix.

   Happy 53rd birthday, Unix! 🥳

   #unix #opensource

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 19:19:36 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @itsfoss "open source" is not relevant, as it was only a thing since 1998.
     
     The Unix source code was originally free when copyright didn't apply to software and Dennis quite nicely mailed tapes of the source code to universities, but then suddenly copyright applied to software and Unix became proprietary and still is.
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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 21:28:49 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • Lambic
     @lambic The concept of software freedom existed, although it was not necessary to define when copyright did not apply to software, as if you had the source code, you had freedom.
     
     Alas, when software fell under copyright, a definition to define it was required and the free software definition was written; https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms
     
     The "open source definition" was taking the 4 freedoms and removing the freedom parts for the sole purpose of making businesses not feel uneasy, as if you remove the mention of freedom, how proprietary software is immoral never comes up; https://opensource.org/osd
     
     There is no other reason for "open source" to exist and the distinction isn't useful - most of what qualifies as "open source" is free software, but there is also nonfree software that qualities under "open source" - really, it is your duty to discard the proprietary rot and love freedom.
     
     Of course the "OSI" has approved 2 proprietary licenses so far and is now shilling proprietary software that really isn't useful except for certain tasks like taking free software under freedom defending licenses and claiming that it's not copyright infringement to have a program read the lot in, mix it up a bit and vomit parts of it out; https://opensource.org/ai
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     Lambic (lambic@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 21:28:51 JST Lambic

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki @itsfoss I would argue that open source was a thing, it just didn't have a name yet.

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     Marty Fouts (martyfouts@mastodon.online)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 08:52:22 JST Marty Fouts

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki @itsfoss The Unix source was never free, although the educational license was cheap. To get it, you had to sign a contract that prohibited you from redistributing it. Such contracts were routine before copyright laws changed to allow software copyright.

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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 08:52:22 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • Marty Fouts
     @MartyFouts >The idea of freely sharing source code dates to the 1950s, perhaps earlier
     It was a thing ever since it was possible to have source code, which dates earlier than the 1950s.
     
     >proprietary source was treated as trade secrets and just as inaccessible as it is now. >proprietary source was treated as trade secrets and just as inaccessible as it is now.
     Indeed - but I decided not to mention that, as it adds much more complexity.
     
     Back then computers regularly used a different instruction set per model, so to use the software you needed the source code - companies making their software difficult to get a copy of didn't necessarily make it proprietary - although a company refusing to provide a copy without the signing of an NDA would make it proprietary (but that only restricted people who betrayed humanity by signing the NDA).
     
     >To get it, you had to sign a contract that prohibited you from redistributing it.
     The "official" way to get it required a NDA, but there were also numerous other ways to get it that didn't require signing a NDA (i.e. a NDA-free version of "A Commentary on the Sixth Edition UNIX Operating System") and those copies were free before 1980 (too bad in 1980 such copies suddenly became nonfree).
     
     >Such contracts were routine before copyright laws changed to allow software copyright.
     Many evil companies routinely demanded NDAs, but not all of them did.