Hackers
The first thing that always comes into my mind when I hear the word “hacker” are people that crack or access a computer system by outwitting its security system. A new thing I learned from the documentary is that there is another type of hackers, besides from cracking into the security system; hackers love programming, they love exploring new and various ways on what they can do with computers by making innovative customizations or combinations of computer equipment. A thriving community of hackers shares their knowledge in continuing to improve an operating system by adding new capabilities. When a hacker loves what he is doing and his or her fellow hackers within the community love what they are doing as well is the purpose they continue working and thriving for the better to help achieve REVOLUTION OS.
A hacker is a computer hobbyist that can be described as an Incompatible time sharing system because of their playful spirit and how they apply their cleverness in computing. They may also be know as people committed to engage in unauthorized remote computer or computer security break-ins through a communication network such as the internet. Another role of hackers includes the debugging and fixing of security problems. This explains the differentiation between the Good or Authorized Hacker and a Bad / Unauthorized Hacker.
The outside world wanted hackers who created operating systems to have passwords because this enables them to control the users and they did not want to build tools that will give administrators the authority to control them. The vision of the hackers was for the users to be able to do what they want and for past administrators to be controlling present administrators on what they are doing. They wanted to imply freedom to the users and strengthen computer security as well. Hackers think and figure out ways of decoding things that they do not like and use it to their advantage.
They can monitor what a user types without being with the user by sending a message to their system and suggesting better inputs for the user like the password. Some people also disliked looking and changing of the source codes of softwares which can be blamed at that time to Microsoft, which was recently founded. Bill Gates questioned the hobby market with the lack of good software courses, books and software. He quoted that an owner must understand programming in order to have a good software and for the hobby computer to not be wasted.
Open-source and Free Software Movement
The open-source and Free Software Movement played a major role in the beginnings and in the development of software when software was being shared on paper tape for the price of paper itself. Bill Gates wanted computer hobbyists not to share, but buy software. Prominent hackers and entrepreneurs including Richard Stallman devoted their life to the development of free software. Richard Stallman did not like to refuse to share and dominate users because he did not like to betray other people but share it with others as well that is why Richard Stallman created GNU. They were forbidden to use UNIX in the community and had to find a replacement for it to continue the development of the software.
Others were also creating their own version of free software that is based from the original UNIX-kernel that brought legal problems with AT&T and fragmentation with the source code, users and computer hackers were slow to adapt to the new software. Richard Stallman wanted to have a complete system which comprises of a kernel that allocates resources to other programs, a compiler that can translate a program from readable source code into numbers, a debugger, text editor, text formats, mailers, etc. to create a UNIX-like workstation. They want to be able to use the source code for better or for worse, no matter what. It would takes days for a Sun machines to work because it would need GNU free software to be downloaded from the interned and then building it and installing it into the Sun machine before it can function the way the company wants it to function.
The crucial thing about GNU is that it is free software that gives you freedom. Free software enables the administrator to make changes if they want to or hire someone else to make the changes for them, to redistribute copies to others to share and make improvements for other people to get the benefits out of the free software. This brought GNU project its up-and-downs in development like the GNU / Linux naming controversy and Linux’s further evolution as well as its commercialization. Some of the ideological aspects of free software are communism and capitalism. Through this, free software differs from non-free software.
Free software has a copyright, it has its owners and it has a license. It is not a public domain because if it is placed in a public domain, other people may be able to make changes and turn it into a proprioritary software pack. Users would be running GNU’s software but they would not have the freedom to create and share.
Ground Zero
The technique of copyleft is that it is copyright flipped over. Copyright gives users permission to redistribute copies, to change and add to it but it has to be under the stated terms in which the company agreed to. Copyright also gives freedom to those given the permission to redistribute, change or add. Copyleft is a general idea being able to use it because you will need to have a specific example for most GNU software packages. A GNU public license is a license based on the agreement and understanding of the GNU community protecting the company and performing the goals in making a grand program in which will benefit the users of the software.
GNU public license is not just any other license, it is said to be a whole philosophy that motivated the open-source definition. Other prominent hackers and entrepreneurs are not afraid to share what they learned, got and use from Richard Stallman. The first GNU and Linux businesses got their inspirations from the Electronics Research Lab at Stanford University that was known as Ground Zero for the beginning of the business phase for the GNU and Linux businesses. At the beginning, Richard Stallman found out that there was room for business to be done and that there is service for free software to be done that can provide support.
Proprioritary software has to offer support that satisfies the user from using it. The case with Microsoft is that they are in a monopoly when it comes to the users with its software support. Typically, one company has the source code and only they can give support to the user. The benefits of free software were tremendous but its cost was what made company managers nervous and resist from buying the product.
GNU and Linux thought of a way to create a model that will support the benefits of software that can deliver 2x – 4x the capability that an internal engineer can provide then it will be able to cut drastically on the cost. This model would meet the test whether or not people would buy the software. One of the hardest things in creating a company is finding the right name for it. CYGNUS was the first business that specialized in free-software. It supported free-software and filled a very essential niche.
The GNU Project started off by building a toolkit with basic development tools like a C compiler, a debugger, a text editor, etc. and their intention was to build a kernel that was to sit on top of this toolkit and be the center of the operating system.
