The Significance of the Open-Source Act and Linux Essay -- Exploratory

The Significance of the Open-Source Act and Linux In the 1980's hardly anyone knew what a DOS attack was, most people hadn't ever seen a computer. There was one great OS for companies back then, UNIX. Unix was commercially made, very expensive, but was a very strong Operating System. Because of the price of equipment, many people wouldn't get into computers, but there was no reason to. Nothing of great significance was stored on computers. By 1985, computers hit the mainstream, providing many universities with links to each other and their libraries. This all came along with the invention of the Internet. Suddenly there was a great amount of information available to those who had access. There were many people who wanted to have the information these universities had, and they tried to get it any way possible. Within almost no time an underground culture started to spawn on the net. This underground consisted of many different type of people: Hackers, someone who exploits security for their benefits; Crackers, someone who breaks software to get it for free; Phreakers, someone who hacks the phone system; and other various, less significant others. These people alone were useless, but once the Internet had connected them, they are allowed to do what they want, when they want. Most of them were stuck with early versions of Microsoft Windows, or Unix. In 1986, another big boom caused the internet-underground to increase in size. Congress passed what is known as the "Open-Source Act." It allowed any code that was made open source to be edited by anyone, as long as the copyrights remained intact in the source-code. Suddenly there were thousands of the underground types getting into programming more than ever. With every... ...s are sure to surface. And with many companies producing versions of Linux, more and more people switch to it over Windows. Any software you use on your Mac, PC, or Unix can be ran on Linux, which causes more people to switch there. Everyone who opens up X Windows, the GUI in Linux, will almost unsurably notice the Source-Code compilers and examples in the startup menu. If just one out of a hundred of those tries to run it, and one out of a hundred of them keeps at it, there will be many more open-source programs out, most of them not made to better the world. Works Cited: Raymond, Eric. The New Hacker's Dictionary. Online: http://info.astrian.net/jargon/Local/, Perodically Updated Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral And The Bazaar. 2001 Verton, Dan. The Hacker Diaries. Osborne McGraw-Hill 2002 Thomas, Douglas. Hacker Culture. Univ of Minnesota Pr. 2002 The Significance of the Open-Source Act and Linux Essay -- Exploratory The Significance of the Open-Source Act and Linux In the 1980's hardly anyone knew what a DOS attack was, most people hadn't ever seen a computer. There was one great OS for companies back then, UNIX. Unix was commercially made, very expensive, but was a very strong Operating System. Because of the price of equipment, many people wouldn't get into computers, but there was no reason to. Nothing of great significance was stored on computers. By 1985, computers hit the mainstream, providing many universities with links to each other and their libraries. This all came along with the invention of the Internet. Suddenly there was a great amount of information available to those who had access. There were many people who wanted to have the information these universities had, and they tried to get it any way possible. Within almost no time an underground culture started to spawn on the net. This underground consisted of many different type of people: Hackers, someone who exploits security for their benefits; Crackers, someone who breaks software to get it for free; Phreakers, someone who hacks the phone system; and other various, less significant others. These people alone were useless, but once the Internet had connected them, they are allowed to do what they want, when they want. Most of them were stuck with early versions of Microsoft Windows, or Unix. In 1986, another big boom caused the internet-underground to increase in size. Congress passed what is known as the "Open-Source Act." It allowed any code that was made open source to be edited by anyone, as long as the copyrights remained intact in the source-code. Suddenly there were thousands of the underground types getting into programming more than ever. With every... ...s are sure to surface. And with many companies producing versions of Linux, more and more people switch to it over Windows. Any software you use on your Mac, PC, or Unix can be ran on Linux, which causes more people to switch there. Everyone who opens up X Windows, the GUI in Linux, will almost unsurably notice the Source-Code compilers and examples in the startup menu. If just one out of a hundred of those tries to run it, and one out of a hundred of them keeps at it, there will be many more open-source programs out, most of them not made to better the world. Works Cited: Raymond, Eric. The New Hacker's Dictionary. Online: http://info.astrian.net/jargon/Local/, Perodically Updated Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral And The Bazaar. 2001 Verton, Dan. The Hacker Diaries. Osborne McGraw-Hill 2002 Thomas, Douglas. Hacker Culture. Univ of Minnesota Pr. 2002