Desktop platforms Toolkit

Story: Expunging the myths of open source

• 
• 

Richard Stallman is not responsible for Linux which was created by Linus Torvalds and contributed to by many people across the world. According to Stallman, Linux should be called GNU/Linux because it consists of the Linux kernel plus GNU software. This is simply not true - if that was all Linux consisted of it would be largely useless. A Linux distribution consists of a lot of open source software which is not exclusive to Linux but which is key to its success and has nothing to do with the GNU project. Software which is not completed in a timely fashion, such as the GNU kernel (called the Hurd) may be of interest to programmers but is of no real value. Linus Torvalds' genious was to invent a method of working which produced such remarkable results.

Software was shared long before Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation. Much of it came out of academic and research institutions and was distributed by user groups. The narrow focus of the GNU project excludes the Internet - without which Linux would just be another student project. The X Window System, which is a key part of desktop Linux, was produced by a consortium of computer manufacturers and academic researhers and ows its success to being an open source project (well before the term was invented).

Today the work of the Mozilla Foundation promises to enable millions of users to reclaim the iternet from the virus and spyware writers. The success of the Firefox project shows just what open source development can do.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread