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diff --git a/writeup/writeup.tex b/writeup/writeup.tex index ce67ea3..27169d4 100644 --- a/writeup/writeup.tex +++ b/writeup/writeup.tex @@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ it makes sense to provide a brief overview for those who don't know what specifi \begin{description} \item[Licenses] In this setting a license is a legal document that is distributed with - almost all modern software, which describes how someone can use a piece of software + almost all modern software, which describes how someone can use a piece of software. \item[Free Software] This term refers to software under specific licenses, making them free for the user to use (free as in freedom, not the monetary cost). This will be covered further in the next section. @@ -105,9 +105,9 @@ Many people don't know that they already use Free Software\cite{COMMONfoss}, but they use most often are Free Software. A few examples of this are, Krita\cite{KRITA}; a graphics design and art tool that is used frequently in animation, and other digital art, is made and managed by the KDE foundation\cite{KDE}, who make exclusively Free Software. Dovecot\cite{DOVECOT}; -an email server used by major email providers and is Free Software, A final example is +an email server used by major email providers and is Free Software. A final example is Firefox\cite{FIREFOX} a Free Software web browser made by Mozilla that makes up 2.71\% of the -browser market share as of 2024, however in the past has had up to 30\%\cite{BROWSERmarketshare}.These +browser market share as of 2024, however in the past has had up to 30\%\cite{BROWSERmarketshare}. These are all more modern examples of Free Software, however over the past 40 years, there have been countless others. @@ -123,12 +123,12 @@ them, but far fewer people had brought required software for said hardware. The at a scale large enough to cause this showed how many computing groups, also known as hacker groups/spaces, weren't willing to pay for the software they used, believing that if they brought the hardware they had done all that was needed\cite{OPENletter}. It is often believed that this is one of the first examples -of \textit{hacker culture}, which would become more common into the 80's and 90's with devices like the blue -box \cite{BLUEbox}. +of \textit{hacker culture}, which would become more common into the 80's and 90's, and was the +starting point of the current Free Software movement. A key figure in \textit{hacker culture}, as previously mentioned, is Richard Stallman. In the - 1980's e lheft his job at MIT to work full time on the GNU project, which was designed -to be a full recreation of AT\&T's Unix operating system from the ground up in all Free Software. + 1980's he left his job at MIT to work full time on the GNU project, which was designed +to be a full recreation of AT\&T's Unix operating system from the ground up as Free Software. The idea was to allow anyone access to a Unix like machine without paying AT\&T's expensive license fees, and allow any user to view it, redistribute or edit; it was to be the first fully free operating system. The early development of GNU was relatively slow, and it was not a completely free @@ -138,23 +138,23 @@ be created. In 1988 BSD Net1 would release\cite{BSDnet1}, this was the first fully open version of the Berkeley Software Distribution version of Unix. BSD was by no means new by this point, however it wasn't -fully free until this point It had completely rewritten all the code from the original +fully free until this point. It had completely rewritten all the code from the original Unix that previous versions contained, meaning it was now completely free from AT\&T's licenses. It would be the start of a long linage of open source operating systems which are now the base -of MacOS, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. +of MacOS, FreeBSD and OpenBSD and is often deamed as the first Open Source operating system. The GNU project, while still not fully finished, saw the final piece of the puzzle when -Linux\cite{LINUX} released in 1991, it was a fully open kernel which GNU was still lacking (however +Linux\cite{LINUX} released in 1991, it was a fully free kernel which GNU was still lacking (however it did get its own kernel called GNU hurd but Linux is far more commonly used). With GNU and Linux paired together a user could finally get a fully free operating system for general use, this combination of software is still in use today, having a 4.7\% market share globally on desktop -computers\cite{LINUXmarket}, And on web servers it is dominant. In recent years it has also shown +computers\cite{LINUXmarket}, and on web servers it is dominant. In recent years it has also shown some use in gaming, with it being the operating system used by Valves \textit{steam deck} gaming handheld\cite{STEAMdeck}. -Since Linux's release there haven't been as many major events, however there has been a slow tick -in development, with a large jump over Covid, now Free Software being fully viable against -its Proprietary counterpart. +Since Linux's release there haven't been as many major events in the space and more so a steady flow +of updates and new features, with a large jump over Covid. As of 2024 it would be hard not to +say Free Software is fully viable against its Proprietary counterpart. \section{How is Free Software developed} The process of developing Free Software has changed over time, especially as the internet came to be, @@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ allowing developers from all across the world to add things. In modern terms the very simple, a developer can look at a piece of code, make changes to a local version of it, then it can be uploaded to a central online version of the code, to be checked by lead maintainers, before becoming the part of the main version (developers would say creating a local branch and submitting a pull request). -This method was popularized version control systems; such as git\cite{GIT}, which is also free software. +This method was popularized by version control systems; such as git\cite{GIT}, which is also free software. What these tools allow for is the work of many people to brought together into one single code base. When code is submitted, it generally gets split into individual chunks (called patches) which each |