Hello, the beautiful people.
Now, one key thing that probably brought you to work with Linux is the idea of open source software.
But what does that term really mean?
Well, in this video, we're going to talk about the new project and what it actually means for software
to be open source and the history of the whole open source movement.
So let's go ahead and get into it.
Okay.
So the first thing that we probably need to understand is what Linux actually is.
When we hear the word Linux, we probably think of a whole operating system that we use as being the
Linux operating system.
Now, surprisingly, this is actually not the case and Linux is actually just one of the pieces of the
whole operating system, the kernel.
So let me explain.
On the 27th of September in 1983, a person called Richard Stallman announced that he was going to begin
developing a operating system that was similar to the Unix operating system, but made of entirely free
software.
Now the operating system was called the new operating system, spelled G.
New, which stands for GNU, is not UNIX, which they like to call a recursive acronym.
Okay.
Now, in in January 1984, Richard Stallman quit his job in the artificial intelligence lab at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
So MIT to work on the new project full time in the aims of creating an operating system made of completely
free software.
Now, the term free software actually refers to several freedoms that the software gives the user rather
than being free as in money.
So when you hear the term free software, think free speech and not free lunch.
Now these freedoms are the first.
First one is the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
That's the first freedom.
The second freedom is the freedom to study how the program works and change it so that it does the computing
as you wish, which is what freedom one is.
Okay, freedom one is that the program will do what you wish.
And Freedom two is the freedom to study how the program works and to change it so that it does as you
wish.
Now, access to the source code for a program is a precondition for this.
You can't study how a program works unless you can look at its code.
So having access to the source code is a precondition for freedom.
Number two The third freedom is the freedom to redistribute copies of the software so that you can,
as they say, help your neighbor.
And freedom number four is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified version of of your of the
software.
So if you modify it, you can redistribute that which links to freedom number three of helping other
people.
But by and apparently by doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.
And again, access to the source code is a precondition for this.
So if you want to modify software and redistribute it, you need to have access to the source code in
order to be able to change it.
Now there's a license that legally provides a user of software with these freedoms, and it's known
as the new public license or the GPL.
Now there's several versions of the new public license or the GPL, but at the time of recording the
GPL, version three is the most modern version.
But in 1991, the new system was almost finished.
But there was still one part missing from the new operating system, and it was an important part.
This final piece is a major part of every operating system, and it's called the kernel.
Now, the kernel is responsible for allocating the resources on the computers, hardware that is required
by the software that it's running.
So it's the interface layer between a computer's hardware and the applications that it's running.
Okay.
Now, at this time in 1991, a man called Linus Torvalds was completing his MSC thesis at the University
of Helsinki in Finland.
And as part of this work, Linus invented a Unix like kernel called Linux, and it was called Linux
after his own name.
But everything in the Unix world kind of ends in an x, so Linus ending in an x is Linux.
And after being invited, after being invited by a fellow student to go see a talk by Richard Stallman,
who was also a prominent activist at the time, Linus released the Linux kernel under the version two
of the new public license or GPL, thereby making the Linux kernel free software.
So thanks to the Linux kernel, the new operating system was complete and was a fully reasonable operating
system made of entirely free software.
With those four freedoms we talked to you about before and it began to gain popularity.
And it's in fact the Linux kernel that is used today on on Android devices and even Chrome OS.
So if you ever hear people say, oh, Android runs a Linux or Chrome OS runs Linux, what they mean
is they use the Linux kernel to interface between the software layer and the hardware layer of your
computer.
But because the Linux kernel was the final piece, it kind of got a whole lot of attention and the rest
of the work that went into the new operating system was kind of forgotten.
But because what we run when we run a distribution like a Bun two or any other Linux distribution is
actually the new operating system and the Linux kernel.
It is recommended that in order to give the new project its credit, instead of just calling the whole
thing Linux, we should call it.
A new plus Linux.
In fact, there is a command called the you name command that will actually tell you loads of information
about your computer, such as what hardware it has and what operating system that it's running.
So if you run the unknown command with the O option, it will tell you your operating system.
So if we run that, we see that we can that we get GNU Linux as the operating system.
So that's pretty cool, right?
Okay.
So with that history, understood.
We now know pretty much all of the commands that we've used so far in the course, such as the RLS command
and the fine command and so on, are all part of the new project.
And to give the users the freedoms that free software provides, the source code needs to be available
to read because access to the source code is a precondition for those freedoms, right?
So in other words, the software must be open source.
So the source code must be openly accessible.
It's open source.
So how can we have a look at the code that our computer runs?
Well, it's actually all freely accessible on the new project's official website, going to dot org.
So if I just open up a Firefox browser here and when that boots up we head over to SNHU dot org, we'll
be able to see what I'm talking about.
So here we are.
Here's Firefox.
Let's go to new dot org and press enter.
There we go.
So you can read all about the the philosophy behind the free software ideology in more detail.
And you can see here, it's telling you to try the new Linux here.
But if you head over to the software section, so if we click on software here and scroll down to a
part that says all new packages, so here it says all new packages.
And you can you can see here that there's every there's basically links to every bit of code that is
run on a new system, including a free software version of the Linux kernel itself, which we can find
under the Linux Libra package.
Say we are Linux Libra.
Okay.
That's the that's the package.
That's the full downloadable folder that contains all of the source code for the for the Linux kernel
itself.
So that's pretty awesome.
Now for all the commands that you've run so far, such as the LS command grep find whatever it might
be.
Okay, you can find those under the core utils package that we are call utils.
Okay.
So that's where you can find the stuff in there in that call utils package.
And in the next video we're going to download the core utils package, modify it and install a new version
of the RLS command to our computer, which is going to be super, super exciting.
But first, let's just take a quick recap of what we've learned in this video.
So in this video, you learned about Richard Stallman beginning the development of the new operating
system in 1983, and the idea was to create a Unix like operating system that was made of entirely free
software.
And you learn that when we say the words free software, we mean software that provides users with certain
freedoms.
So think of free speech rather than free lunch.
Now the fourth, there are four freedoms that the free the free software gives the users.
So it gives the users the ability to run programs as they wish for any purpose.
It gives the users the ability to study how a program works and change it so it does the computing as
they wish.
And access to source code is a precondition for that.
It gives the users the ability to freely, freely distribute any copies they get so that they can help
out other people.
And it also gives the users the ability to distribute modified versions of the software that they create
to other people.
So this allows the whole community to benefit from any changes that a user makes.
And again, access to source code is a precondition for that as well.
Now, these freedoms are legally provided to users using the new public license or the GPL and as as
the time of recording the, the third version of the GPL.
So GPL version three is the most modern version of the license and open access to the source code is
a precondition for giving these freedoms.
So and one of software has openly accessible source code, it is known as open source software.
So you can say that free software is open source, but not all soft or not all open source software
is free software.
Because whilst people might let you see the source code, that doesn't mean they necessarily give you
the freedoms required to modify and distribute it.
They might just let you see the source code.
Okay.
But the free software does does require open source software.
So it works one way, but not the other.
And you've also learned that in 1991, the good new project was almost finished, but it had an important
missing piece, which was the kernel.
And the kernel is the part of the operating system that interfaces between the hardware and allocates
resources from the hardware depending upon what software requires it.
And in 1991, Linus Torvalds created his own version of a kernel and called it the Linux kernel and
released it in 1991 under the new public license version two, thereby making it free software.
So the Linux kernel was the final piece for the new operating system, and now the two tend to work
together.
So when you download a bunch to or when you download any other type of Linux distribution, what you're
actually downloading is a version of the new plus Linux operating system.
So henceforth we won't just call it Linux, we'll call it the GNU Linux operating system.
Okay.
So in the next video, now that we understand this, a little bit of a history lesson we understand
about the freedoms and what open source software is all about.
We're going to play with some source code.
Okay?
We're going to download and take a look at some of the source code for some core commands, modify their
code and install that modified code on our computer and see how they behave differently.
So this is going to be amazing and it's going to really allow you to see what open source free software
is all about.
So for all that, goodness, I'll see you in the next video.