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Mon Apr 25 13:37:00 UTC 2011 Slackware 13.37 x86_64 stable is released! Thanks to everyone who pitched in on this release: the Slackware team, the folks producing upstream code, and linuxquestions.org for providing a great forum for collaboration and testing. The ISOs are off to be replicated, a 6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD. Please consider supporting the Slackware project by picking up a copy from store.slackware.com. We're taking pre-orders now, and offer a discount if you sign up for a subscription. As always, thanks to the Slackware community for testing, suggestions, and feedback. :-) Have fun!
126 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
126 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
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<th colspan="3" align="center">Slackware Linux Essentials</th>
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<tr>
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<td width="10%" align="left" valign="bottom"><a href="introduction-slackware.html"
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<td width="80%" align="center" valign="bottom">Chapter 1 An Introduction to Slackware
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<div class="SECT1">
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<h1 class="SECT1"><a id="INTRODUCTION-OPENSOURCE" name="INTRODUCTION-OPENSOURCE">1.3 Open
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Source and Free Software</a></h1>
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<p>Within the Linux community, there are two major ideological movements at work. The
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Free Software movement (which we'll get into in a moment) is working toward the goal of
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making all software free of intellectual property restrictions. Followers of this
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movement believe these restrictions hamper technical improvement and work against the
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good of the community. The Open Source movement is working toward most of the same goals,
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but takes a more pragmatic approach to them. Followers of this movement prefer to base
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their arguments on the economic and technical merits of making source code freely
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available, rather than the moral and ethical principles that drive the Free Software
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Movement.</p>
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<p>At the other end of the spectrum are groups that wish to maintain tighter controls
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over their software.</p>
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<p>The Free Software movement is headed by the Free Software Foundation, a fund-raising
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organization for the GNU project. Free software is more of an ideology. The oft-used
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expression is “free as in speech, not free as in beer”. In essence, free
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software is an attempt to guarantee certain rights for both users and developers. These
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freedoms include the freedom to run the program for any reason, to study and modify the
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source code, to redistribute the source, and to share any modifications you make. In
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order to guarantee these freedoms, the GNU General Public License (GPL) was created. The
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GPL, in brief, provides that anyone distributing a compiled program which is licensed
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under the GPL must also provide source code, and is free to make modifications to the
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program as long as those modifications are also made available in source code form. This
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guarantees that once a program is “opened” to the community, it cannot be
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“closed” except by consent of every author of every piece of code (even the
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modifications) within it. Most Linux programs are licensed under the GPL.</p>
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<p>It is important to note that the GPL does not say anything about price. As odd as it
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may sound, you can charge for free software. The “free” part is in the
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liberties you have with the source code, not in the price you pay for the software.
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(However, once someone has sold you, or even given you, a compiled program licensed under
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the GPL they are obligated to provide its source code as well.)</p>
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<p>Another popular license is the BSD license. In contrast to the GPL, the BSD license
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gives no requirement for the release of a program's source code. Software released under
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the BSD license allows redistribution in source or binary form provided only a few
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conditions are met. The author's credentials cannot be used as a sort of advertisement
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for the program. It also indemnifies the author from liability for damages that may arise
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from the use of the software. Much of the software included in Slackware Linux is BSD
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licensed.</p>
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<p>At the forefront of the younger Open Source movement, the Open Source Initiative is an
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organization that solely exists to gain support for open source software, that is,
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software that has the source code available as well as the ready-to-run program. They do
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not offer a specific license, but instead they support the various types of open source
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licenses available.</p>
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<p>The idea behind the OSI is to get more companies behind open source by allowing them
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to write their own open source licenses and have those licenses certified by the Open
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Source Initiative. Many companies want to release source code, but do not want to use the
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GPL. Since they cannot radically change the GPL, they are offered the opportunity to
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provide their own license and have it certified by this organization.</p>
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<p>While the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative work to help each
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other, they are not the same thing. The Free Software Foundation uses a specific license
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and provides software under that license. The Open Source Initiative seeks support for
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all open source licenses, including the one from the Free Software Foundation. The
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grounds on which each argues for making source code freely available sometimes divides
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the two movements, but the fact that two ideologically diverse groups are working toward
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the same goal lends credence to the efforts of each.</p>
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