Chapter 1Overview and Motivation
“Change your opinions, keep your principles; Change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
—Victor Hugo
This chapter discusses the short history and current scope of computer software and its development. We focus on the origins and evolution of “free and open source software” (often called FOSS), identifying its distinctions from “proprietary software,” which is generally neither free nor open source.
You will learn that these two genres of software have different sources of support, goals, development methodologies, and outcomes. Studying the methodologies and goals that drive the development of free and open source software is the main focus of this book.
1.1 Software
Software is a fundamental element of computing. ...
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