The-Linux-Academy.co.uk
Title
The Linux Academy
Description
What is open-source software ?
There is still some debate within the software community about the exact definitions of and differences between the terms "free software" and "open-source software". Most of it is fairly academic however, since for most people the important thing to understand is that both refer to software covered by a license which permits free distribution and guarantees availability of source code. One such license is the GNU General Public License (GPL).
What this means in practice is that software distributed under such an open-source license cannot be owned or controlled by any single person or company, and while it may quite legally be sold for profit (often with value added services such as pre-configuration or support), it must remain freely available in source-code form for anyone who wants it.
What is Linux ?
Linux (or GNU/Linux to give it its full name) started out in 1984 as a project by Richard Stallman of the Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) computer science department to develop a complete free UNIX system by the name of GNU. By the end of the 1980's GNU had succeeded in providing the world a complete set of UNIX like tools, but was still missing the one final component required to turn it into a full stand-alone operating system - a kernel.
