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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 03:30 PM EDT |
http://www.acronymfinder.com/OSS.html
gives me 100 meanings. I presume you mean
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Open+Source+Software
open source software [¦ō·pən ‚sȯrs
′sȯf‚twer]
(computer science)
Software that is written in such a way that others are encouraged to freely
redistribute it, and all changes to the code must be made freely available.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E,
Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
I don't see anything there about Unix, Gnu or any of those beasts...
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 03:58 PM EDT |
OSS comes from the GNU project and GNU means Gnus Not Unix.
The GNU
project was founded in 1983. BSD, which certainly qualifies as open source,
dates to 1977. AT&T UNIX dates to 1969 and was originally open. The old,
informal, model dates to Ada Lovelace's work on the Analytical Engine in the
1840s. Perhaps I should have used 'shared source' for these, as that seems to
be the accepted term. The modern, formalized, open source movement is a
reaction to the forced closing of the old systems that occurred around
1980.
OSS was always a UNIX clone trying to recreate the multiuser
UNIX experience for every man. So they where mostly writing software to run on
UNIX workstations.
GNU is a clone of UNIX. BSD is a UNIX, not a
clone. FreeDOS is OSS, and is not UNIX.
That we today use pc
hardware comes from the fact that the PC clones was created and competed with
IBM PC so that the cost of the hardware went down so much that they become the
most sold and thus most inexpensive hardware for a computor.
I said
'personal computing' not PC hardware. Apple I (1976), Commodore PET (1977),
Atari 800 (1979), Sinclair ZX81 (1981). These were all personal computers, as
opposed to the old mainframe model. It became possible because Moore's Law
dictates a reduction in cost as well as a rise in capability every 18 months.
The IBM PC was released in 1981.
It was the Commodore 64 (1982) which really
brought home computing mainstream. It still holds the title for best selling
personal computer of all time (12-17 million units) and at its height held
30-40% market share, which was greater than the entire IBM PC family (including
clones) at that time.
PS Sadly if you look at it it would probably
been better if the Amiga been the big winner with its much more better support
for sound and graphics. Now it took a long time until PC could make the good 3D
games that we have today - had amiga been the frontrunner we would have been
here much sooner. Games has always been a big contributing factor in the
development of better hardware.
I never had the chance to run an Amiga,
but going from the C64 to a 286 based MSDOS machine was very painful. Although
it had a faster CPU, more memory, and a hard drive, the graphics were terrible
(CGA, IIRC, with a monochrome monitor), no sound but the built in beeper, and
nothing in the way of documentation. For comparison, my old C64 manual
even included circuit diagrams.
Considering that digital computers were
originally created for scientific research, and some of the biggest advances
were for military use in WWII and the Cold War, that games are a major tech
driver today seems rather ironic.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- I beg to differ - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 11 2013 @ 03:57 AM EDT
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