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There is a wealth of information out there about free software,
and this collection of links should correct anyone who thinks
that there isn't any software written for Unix.
My Mom seems to be part of a vast international network of cooks who invent stuff and share recipes freely with other cooks. Mom will invite you to her house for dinner, and will give you her recipe if you ask for it. Joe, a cook who lives next door to my Mom, charges people for dinners and does not give out the recipes. My Mom can eat his food, but she can't do much with it when she's done eating, and she can't reproduce it, except by guessing at the contents and experimenting at home. Jane, who lives on the other side of my Mom, gives away huge batches of vegetable broth, (which you can use to make your own recipes) but doesn't let anyone see the recipe for the broth. If my Mom thinks Jane's broth is too salty she has two options: invent her own recipe for broth, or suck it up and use Jane's. In the above scenarios, my Mom is like the Free Software Foundation, which thinks that everybody should have the freedom to share source code with each other, and thinks that all source code should be shared. Joe is like Microsoft, or any company that charges for their software and doesn't let you see the source code. Jane gives out vegetable broth like Sun distributes Java - anyone can download the software and use it to write applets, but you can't (except under fairly limited circumstances) get the source code for Java and change it to suit your needs. Actually, Jane also assumes that if you want to be a serious cook, then you'll come to her and buy the Super Kitchen Spice Kit, with which you can be a real chef. Sun gives away sort of the hobbyists version of Java, and then sells (I think) the Enterprise Edition, which has all of the professional database connection tools and so forth. You can have a lot of fun and make some pretty useful stuff with just some vegetable broth, though. My Mom and the Free Software Foundation are more concerned that everybody has access to tasty recipes. People who sell proprietary software are more concerned with dinner. My Mom, however, does not have to cook for a living, so it is very easy for her to give away recipes. There are lots of problems with this extended analogy- I invite you to find them. |
Organizations |
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Free Software Foundation This is a not-for-profit charity whose goal is to create a completely free Unix-like operating system, with all of the tools a user might need. This goal has become much closer to being realized with the introduction of the Linux operating system. Home of the Gnu "CopyLeft" license. |
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OpenSource.Org This is a site dedicated to open-source software. Open Source licensing is much looser than the Gnu "CopyLeft" license. |
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Perl Mongers This page contains information about PERL, links to other useful PERL sites, etc., etc. |
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The GNU General
Public License (GPL) takes an unusual approach to software licensing - essentially it says that you may copy and distribute software licensed under the GPL at will, provided you do not inhibit others from doing the same, either by charging them for the software itself, or by restricting them through further licensing. Click the Gnu if you are curious... |
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All Open Source
Licenses The Gnu "copyleft" license is not the only free software license out there. Follow this link to see some other variations, including the one under which Netscape is released. |
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OpenSources:
Voices From the Open Source Revolution This is an entire book on-line, filled with essays from famous (in their own circles) open-source visionaries. The book is also sold in stores, if you want the convenience of reading it on the beach or in bed. |
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The Open
Group This consortium of companies together represents official UNIX (Sun, SGI, HP, Compaq, etc.). The language on this particular page is in striking contrast (i.e., very restrictive) to the language on almost all of the other pages you will find here. |
Applications and development tools |
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Perl Contains information about the language itself - supported platforms, tutorials, commercial support, etc. |
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Generic Mapping
Tools Free collection of command line tools for producing maps. Very useful for non-interactive mapping applications, and it does some number crunching as well. |
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The GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation
Program) A free Photoshop-like image creation and manipulation program. It can do some very nifty image tweaking. |
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GRASS "GRASS is a raster-based GIS, vector GIS, image processing system, graphics production system, data management system, and spatial modeling system." It is also licensed under the GPL. |
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Java Java is a free (for download) programming language that allows you to create interactive programs that run inside of a browser. It is a fully featured object-oriented programming language (for those who know what that means) that, aside from some speed issues, is a peer to C++, Delphi, or VB. |
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Tucows Linux This isn't a link to an application or development tool, but rather a collection of free software for various purposes (editors, spreadsheets, mpeg players, etc., etc.) |
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Scientific
Applications on Linux This is a site that contains a collection of links relating to science software on linux, including math, graphics and visualization, chemistry and biology, etc. |
Server Software |
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Apache Apache is a free web server program that runs on 57% of the websites on the Internet. This program is free. |
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Sendmail Sendmail is a free mail server software package that handles up to 75% of the world's e-mail traffic. |
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PostgreSQL The PostgreSQL server is a free, open-source relational database server that runs on most Unix (including Linux) platforms. |
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MySQL MySQL is a free database server designed to handle large tables. Their web page says "We have now been using MySQL since 1996 in an environment with more than 40 databases containing 10,000 tables, of which more than 500 have more than 7 million rows. This is about 100 gigabytes of mission-critical data." |
Operating Systems |
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Linux Linux is very much in the news right now, particularly in the financial sector, as some companies that produce Linux oriented hardware and software have had astoundingly successful Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of stock (RedHat Linux and VALinux are two noteworthy examples.) Linux came into being because its creator, Linus Torvalds, wanted to use Unix on his 386PC, and couldn't afford the commercial versions then available, so he sat down and wrote the core of Linux. By itself, this wouldn't have been a big deal, but when combined with the tools available from 20 years of Unix development and software from the Gnu project, there sprung up a fully-fledged operating system that is now, 9ish years later, getting a lot of enthusiasm and publicity, some deserved, some not. The site I have chosen is not the representative web site for Linux... there is no representative web site for Linux, because of the way it is being developed by volunteers all over the world (and coordinated by Linus Torvalds). This site has good links to the various distributions of Linux and other links to LInux information. |
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FreeBSD FreeBSD (as its name implies) is a free version of the BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) Unix. The code for this operating system is different than Linux in that it is based on "official" Unix source code. Linux, in contrast, was designed to behave just like Unix, but the internals were designed from scratch. The well-known search engine/Web portal/mondo link collection, Yahoo!, runs their servers on FreeBSD. |
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NetBSD Another version of Unix based on the BSD Unix. Seems to be oriented more towards hobbyists and researchers than either FreeBSD or Linux, which are being actively promoted as viable options for web, mail, and data servers. |
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Gnu Hurd The Gnu Hurd is a Unix-like kernel that has been the primary goal of the Gnu project since its inception in the early 80's. Along the way, while somehow not managing to quite complete the core of the operating system, the Gnu project created all the other components of a free computer system, like an extremely popular editor, a C/C++ compiler, and free versions of just about every command line tool Unix users have come to depend on. A version of the Hurd is now ready, and reportedly stable. |
Linux Distributions |
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Red Hat A very popular vendor for Linux. RedHat and others make money by bundling the Linux kernel with other free software tools (like GIMP and Netscape) on a CD and selling it in a store with a book on how to use Linux. They also write software that makes it simpler to install Linux on your computer. |
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Caldera This distribution (like some others) bundles Applixware and StarOffice, two Microsoft Office-like packages that have word processors, spreadsheet software, etc. Office software is the one glaring category of software missing from Linux (and Unix). There are several attempts at correcting this problem... Corel has ported its latest version of WordPerfect for Linux. |
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Debian Debian is an organization that is somehow associated with the Gnu Project. Debian's goal is to provide a free operating system (and associated utilities) for your computer. Currently the kernel is Linux, but Debian soon hopes to have a distribution with Hurd. |
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Slackware This distribution has as one of its goals to be the most Unix-like of all the Linux distributions. They say "We have always considered simplicity and stability paramount, and as a result Slackware has become one of the most popular, stable, and friendly distributions available." |
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SuSE SuSE is very popular in Europe (the company was founded in Germany), and it turns out that Linux in general has been very well received in Europe generally. |
Linux Information |
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Linux.com "Linux.com's mission is to enrich the Linux community by providing a centralized place for individuals of all experience levels to learn (and teach) the power and virtues of the Linux Operating System." This page has some interesting articles. |
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Linux International "Linux International is a non-profit organization, residing physically in the United States, however our organization is made up of many people contributing from all areas of the globe. We distribute information about Linux, and how it will benefit business and personal users, reserve places at major computer expos, and accept donations to distribute to programmers who need money to test out applications." |
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The Linux Kernel Archives This page is the source for the latest information on the Linux kernel development. The kernel is the core part of an operating system... I can't define it any better than that. At any rate, if you're really curious about the details of Linux, this is the site to see. Interesting note: This site is hosted by Linus Torvalds' (creator of Linux) current employer, Transmeta. |
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