On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:25 +0000, graham wrote: > Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: > > In the 60s, all or most software cam with source code and nothing prohibited > > or prevented recipients from using, modifying, sharing, or redistributing. > > > > In the 70s this started to change and in 1983 RMS launched a movement to > > bring these freedoms back. > > > Yes, I'm aware that this is the orthodoxy. But it doesn't quite fit my > memory, and I prefer to stay with that even if in a minority of one. My > memory says > that while all programmes before the late 70s were open source, only > some were free software - 'aggressively' open source, in a sense
To be honest, I think you're both right. It would be difficult to describe code distributed in the 60s etc. as 'free software' - those freedoms were neither enumerated, recognised nor enshrined. In a sense (to draw a parallel with another argument I had the other day ;), it would be like labelling early farmers as organic. The main problem is that early software was essentially non-economic: it wasn't a product in it's own right, at best it was a necessary accessory. For much of that time, writing software was seen as women's work, which I think says everything. But, at the same time, Ciaran's right that early software (though I wouldn't necessarily put late 60s software in that category) was basically distributed in a similar to manner to what we recognise as free software now. Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
