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Cyhist Dec 2 1998 C
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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 13:51:57 -0500
Reply-To: dkw@cs.brandeis.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: David Wittenberg <dkw@CS.BRANDEIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Free software
X-cc: esr@THYRSUS.COM, David Wittenberg <dkw@berry.cs.brandeis.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199812020628.BAA02211@berry.cs.brandeis.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Dec 2, 98 01:02:35 am MIME-Version: 1.0
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______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
There are two different kinds of "free software". The first is "freeware", that is software made available for free with the expectation that only the original author will make changes. The second is the FSF style (which Raymond describes in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar).
In the freeware category, it would be hard to tell when the first freeware came out, as much (if not most) of the early software was free if you bought the hardware it ran on. For more portable code, TeX was available by 1978, and news by the early 80s. Adventure spread widely even earlier than that. For a less clear example, BSD Unix was free (or almost free) to universities. All of these examples involved essentially no face to face contact.
I don't know about the FSF style, which I think esr is asking about here, but to make the question clear, we must distinguish it from "freeware".
--David Wittenberg
dkw@cs.brandeis.edu
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: dkw@cs.brandeis.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: David Wittenberg <dkw@CS.BRANDEIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Free software
X-cc: esr@THYRSUS.COM, David Wittenberg <dkw@berry.cs.brandeis.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199812020628.BAA02211@berry.cs.brandeis.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Dec 2, 98 01:02:35 am MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
There are two different kinds of "free software". The first is "freeware", that is software made available for free with the expectation that only the original author will make changes. The second is the FSF style (which Raymond describes in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar).
In the freeware category, it would be hard to tell when the first freeware came out, as much (if not most) of the early software was free if you bought the hardware it ran on. For more portable code, TeX was available by 1978, and news by the early 80s. Adventure spread widely even earlier than that. For a less clear example, BSD Unix was free (or almost free) to universities. All of these examples involved essentially no face to face contact.
I don't know about the FSF style, which I think esr is asking about here, but to make the question clear, we must distinguish it from "freeware".
--David Wittenberg
dkw@cs.brandeis.edu
______________________________________________________________________
