Running Linux, Third Edition

Open Source and the Philosophy of Linux

When new users encounter Linux, they often have a few misconceptions and false expectations of the system. Linux is a unique operating system, and it’s important to understand its philosophy and design in order to use it effectively. At the center of the Linux philosophy is a concept that we now call Open Source Software.

Open Source is a term that applies to software for which the source code—the inner workings of the program—is freely available for anyone to download, modify, and redistribute. Software covered under the GNU GPL, described in the previous section, fits into the category of Open Source. Not surprisingly, though, so does a lot of other software that uses copyright licenses similar, but not identical, to the GPL. For example, software that can be freely modified but that does not have the same strict requirements for redistribution as the GPL is also considered Open Source.

The so-called “Open Source development model” is a phenomenon that started with the Free Software Foundation and which was popularized with Linux. It’s a totally different way of producing software that opens up every aspect of development, debugging, testing, and study to anyone with enough interest in doing so. Rather than relying upon a single corporation to develop and maintain a piece of software, Open Source allows the code to evolve, openly, in a community of developers and users who are motivated by desire to create good software, rather than ...