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Fork (software Engineering)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. The term often implies not merely a development branch, but also a split in the developer community; as such, it is a form of schism. Grounds for forking are varying user preferences and stagnated or discontinued development of the original software. Free and open-source software is that which, by definition, may be forked from the original development team without prior permission, and without violating copyright law. However, licensed forks of proprietary software (''e.g.'' Unix) also happen. Etymology The word "fork" has been used to mean "to divide in branches, go separate ways" as early as the 14th century. In the software environment, the word evokes the fork system call, which causes a running process to split itself into two (almost) identical copies that (typic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linux Distribution Timeline
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy. Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu, the latter of which itself consists of many different distributions and modifications, including Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for servers ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gilmore (activist)
John Gilmore (born 1955) is one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks mailing list, and Cygnus Solutions. He created the ''alt.*'' hierarchy in Usenet and is a major contributor to the GNU Project. An outspoken civil libertarian, Gilmore has sued the Federal Aviation Administration, the United States Department of Justice, and others. He was the plaintiff in the prominent case '' Gilmore v. Gonzales'', challenging secret travel-restriction laws, which he lost. He is an advocate for drug policy reform. He co-authored the Bootstrap Protocol in 1985, which evolved into Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), the primary way local networks assign an IP address to devices. Life and career As the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems and founder of Cygnus Support, he became wealthy enough to retire early and pursue other interests. He is a frequent contributor to free software, and worked on several GNU projects, including maintaining the GNU De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain and the standard compiler for most projects related to GNU and the Linux kernel. With roughly 15 million lines of code in 2019, GCC is one of the biggest free programs in existence. It has played an important role in the growth of free software, as both a tool and an example. When it was first released in 1987 by Richard Stallman, GCC 1.0 was named the GNU C Compiler since it only handled the C programming language. It was extended to compile C++ in December of that year. Front ends were later developed for Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada, D and Go, among others. The OpenMP and OpenACC specifications are also supported in the C and C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egcs
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain and the standard compiler for most projects related to GNU and the Linux kernel. With roughly 15 million lines of code in 2019, GCC is one of the biggest free programs in existence. It has played an important role in the growth of free software, as both a tool and an example. When it was first released in 1987 by Richard Stallman, GCC 1.0 was named the GNU C Compiler since it only handled the C programming language. It was extended to compile C++ in December of that year. Front ends were later developed for Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada, D and Go, among others. The OpenMP and OpenACC specifications are also supported in the C and C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
386BSD
386BSD (also known as "Jolix") is a discontinued Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was released in 1992 and ran on PC-compatible computer systems based on the 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor. 386BSD innovations included role-based security, ring buffers, self-ordered configuration and modular kernel design. History 386BSD was written mainly by Berkeley alumni Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz. William Jolitz had considerable experience with prior BSD releases while at the University of California at Berkeley (2.8 and 2.9BSD) and both contributed code developed at Symmetric Computer Systems during the 1980s, to Berkeley. Work on porting 4.3BSD-Reno and later 4.3BSD Net/2 to the Intel 80386 was done for the University of California by William Jolitz at Berkeley. 4.3BSD Net/2 was an incomplete non-operational release, with portions withheld by the University of California as ''encumbered'' (i.e. subject to an AT&T UNIX source code li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of the free software movement. Its name has occasionally been shortened to GNUMACS. The tag line for GNU Emacs is "the extensible self-documenting text editor". History In 1976, Stallman wrote the first Emacs (“Editor MACroS”), and in 1984, began work on GNU Emacs, to produce a free software alternative to the proprietary Gosling Emacs. GNU Emacs was initially based on Gosling Emacs, but Stallman's replacement of its Mocklisp interpreter with a true Lisp interpreter required that nearly all of its code be rewritten. This became the first program released by the nascent GNU Project. GNU Emacs is written in C and provides Emacs Lisp, also implemented in C, as an extension language. Version 13, the first public release, was made on Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET AI/ LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It was published in paperback form in 1983 as ''The Hacker's Dictionary'' (edited by Guy Steele), revised in 1991 as ''The New Hacker's Dictionary'' (ed. Eric S. Raymond; third edition published 1996). The concept of the file began with the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) that came out of early TX-0 and PDP-1 hackers in the 1950s, where the term hacker emerged and the ethic, philosophies and some of the nomenclature emerged. 1975 to 1983 The Jargon File (referred to here as "Jargon-1" or "the File") was made by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From that time until the plug was finally pulled on the SAIL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homesteading The Noosphere
"Homesteading the Noosphere" (abbreviated HtN) is an essay written by Eric S. Raymond about the social workings of open-source software development. It follows his previous piece "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (1997). The essay examines issues of project ownership and transfer, as well as investigating possible anthropological roots of the gift culture in open source as contrasted with the exchange culture of closed source software. Raymond also investigates the nature of the spread of open source into the untamed frontier of ideas he terms the noosphere, postulating that projects that range too far ahead of their time fail because they are too far out in the wilderness, and that successful projects tend to relate to existing projects. Raymond delves into the contrast between the stated aims of open source and observed behaviors, and also explores the underlying motivations of people involved in the open source movement. He notes that a key motivation for open source practitioners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric S
The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse language, Proto-Norse ''*wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/ainaz, aina(z)'', meaning "one, alone, unique", ''as in the form'' ''Æ∆inrikr'' explicitly, but it could also be from ''*wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/aiwaz, aiwa(z)'' "everlasting, eternity", as in the Gothic form ''Euric''. The second element ''-wikt:ríkr, ríkr'' stems either from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/rīks, ríks'' "king, ruler" (cf. Gothic ''wikt:𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, reiks'') or the therefrom derived ''*wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/rīkijaz, ríkijaz'' "kingly, powerful, rich, prince"; from the common Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European root *wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₃rḗǵs, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Open Source Definition
''The Open Source Definition'' is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark. The definition was taken from the exact text of the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted primarily by Bruce Perens with input from the Debian developers on a private Debian mailing list. The document was created 9 months before the formation of the Open Source Initiative. Definition Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: # Free redistribution: The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. # Source code: The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in sourc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Free Software Definition
The Free Software Definition written by Richard Stallman and published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), defines free software as being software that ensures that the end users have freedom in using, studying, sharing and modifying that software. The term "free" is used in the sense of "free speech," not of "free of charge." The earliest-known publication of the definition was in the February 1986 edition of the now-discontinued ''GNU's Bulletin'' publication by the FSF. The canonical source for the document is in the philosophy section of the GNU Project website. , it is published in 39 languages. The FSF publishes a list of licences which meet this definition. The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software The definition published by the FSF in February 1986 had two points: In 1996, when the gnu.org website was launched, "free software" was defined referring to "three levels of freedom" by adding an explicit mention of the freedom to study the software (which could be read ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-source Software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine the code facilitates public trust in the software. Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2008 report by the Standish Group stated that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year for consumers. Open source code can be used for studying and allows capable end users to adapt software to their personal needs in a similar way user scripts an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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