Free-software community

The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement.^[1] The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof. The Linux community is a subset of the free-software community.

History

Communication structure

Recognisable characteristics

Disagreements

Some^[which?] arguments take on the fervor of "religious wars", such as the technical disputes from the 80s and early 90s over which text editor is better, Emacs or Vi/Vim, or even what version of a text editor is superior, GNU Emacs vs XEmacs.

Other conflicts exist over naming. These can occur because of differing opinions on historical accuracy^{[unbalanced opinion]}, philosophical background or credit, such as the alternative terms for free software and the GNU/Linux naming controversy. And they can be caused by a conflict of business models and the use of trademarks, as is the case for the Naming conflict between Debian and Mozilla.

Companies entering the community

With the advent of free software such as Linux, Apache HTTP Server, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice.org, many companies such as IBM, Apple, Dell, HP, Google, Sun, Oracle and others too numerous to list, have begun interacting with the free-software community. Difficulties include the choice of free-software licences, and the selection of what software will be released as free software.^{[citation needed]}

An example of a relatively successful^{[peacock term]} entry to the free-software community is Sun Microsystems' July 19, 2000 release of the Star Office source code under the GNU Lesser General Public License and the successive development of OpenOffice.org on this foundation.^[2] This move was warmly^{[peacock term]} received by the community since it did not have a mature office suite at the time.^{[citation needed]} Sun's use of the community's preferred licence was also welcome^{[peacock term]}, because it allowed source code to be shared with other projects.^{[citation needed]}

An example of a more difficult^{[peacock term]} entry was that of Real Networks. Real Networks wrote their own licence, and released only parts of their software suite. Most notably^{[peacock term]}, the codec—the software needed to view Real Video files—was not released.

See also

Free Software portal

• Free software movement
• International Free Software Congress
• Linux User Group

References

1. ^ Some examples showing that, and how, "free-software community" is used:
   • "Building a free software community in a PC Garage". Linux.com. http://www.linux.com/articles/55205. 
   • "Big challenges for the free software community". Mark Shuttleworth. http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/62. "The “character” I like most about the free software community is that it is not afraid of setting itself audacious goals..." 
   • "Sun 'distorts' definition of free software". ZDnet. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39206659,00.htm. "Sun's president Jonathan Schwartz has angered some in the free software community by appearing to misrepresent what open source is." 
   • "The free software community after 20 years: with great but incomplete success, what now?". Free Software Foundation. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/use-free-software.html. 
   • "Debian Social Contract". Debian. http://www.debian.org/social_contract. "The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) ... has been adopted by the free software community" 
   • "Message to the Linux and free software community regarding the SCO denial-of-service virus". Bruce Perens. http://perens.com/SCO/DOS/. 
   • "Let's reward corporations that embrace Free Software". Libervis. http://www.libervis.com/article/lets_reward_corporations_that_embrace_free_software. "The Free Software community is without a doubt today an important part of the overall IT business ecosystem..." 
2. ^ OpenOffice.org FAQ

External links

• The Free Software Community After 20 Years, by Richard Stallman
• International Workshop on Emerging Trends in FLOSS Research and Development, 21 May 2007 - joined with ICSE 2007
• Debian related free software surveys