What Was Life Like Before Open Source?
summary
Before open source, companies buy hardware, software, manuals and training from one vendor, source code costs extra, and interoperability is virtually nonexistent; Unix (C-written and portable) and later TCP/IP break that lock, GNU and Minix spur a portable Linux kernel, package managers (RPM/Deb) and commodity hardware drive costs down, and by 2017 about 78% of companies use FOSS. Recent license moves (examples: Terraform relicensing and the BSL license on some DBs) trigger forks (OpenTofu, FerretDB) and force choices between paying, freezing, or forking.
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chapters (15)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:05Open source threatened
- 3:11Computing before PCs
- 7:00Proprietary systems lock-in
- 8:43AT&T Unix origins
- 12:16GNU project beginnings
- 13:59PCs and early networking
- 17:08Linux creation
- 19:57Open source freedoms impact
- 22:30License greed rise
- 25:40Forking survival role
- 26:43Business models sustainability
- 28:54Corporate contributions ethics
- 31:05Economic value of OSS
- 31:52Q&A with Peter Farcus
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