astrogeek
you have really given a useful and important resources on free software...I would request you to take survey too and give your frank opinion...I am sure you can give in-depth developer's perspective on free (and/or open source) software...I am unable to get any historical information or fact on as to why the proponent of open source separated from those promoting free software...was it a conspiracy of market or the section trying to commercialise entire thing...I don't know...and I could not come across any reading material about it...

Thanks a lot for the inputs given by you...

Thanks & regards
Sameer Gupta

i pay for software, I pay for music, I pay for movies, I pay for pictures.
I have enjoyed a few books about open-source and the take-home message I get is that Richard Stallman is usually right, Linux Torvalds is great at making selfish people help one another and, sadly in some ways, Google does good things.

I'm more interested iopn open knowledge -- I'll not hold back thesolution to your problem because you didn't pay me.
That said, I'll never be anything like wealthy.

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Ok, I will try to add some "other" point of view - or try to explain a bit better.

I was working for really big, international companies (like Microsoft or IBM) since 1995. What I saw (before 2000) they refused to use/embedd free/open source software pieces, because there is no support, unreliable, whatever. We all know this was not the real reason. These companies could not handle issues related to rights and licenses, so would be better to avoid using them. Later these companies found the "free" software is cheaper, much cheaper than all the other softwares (what they eventually develop for themselves too). So they started to move to linux, started to use free and open source softwares and now you can see they are in use. But actually noone knows the real price of these softwares, because these companies had to change hardwares, tools and a lot of things to be able to continue (for example form sun/spark to intel).

so this point of view the main reason is to use free software is the fact it is free. Nobody care about usability/compatibility/stability/quality.

When I go home and use my PC at home I still don't care about it. It should be free, I mean I do not want to pay for it. I don't know if it was open source or not, there are only two things: I do not want to pay for it and I want to do something. If that software works for me I will use. If I have to pay for it I will, but I still do not care if it was a donation to someone or it was just the price of something.

Furthermore I do not think an open source or free or paid software has better performance, look and feel or whatever. It only depends on how (well) it was designed, implemented and tested. And believe me sometimes a 20 years old closed source software serves better, sometimes a fresh, new, still developed counterpart works better.

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The main point is that the ideas and practices behind FOSS go all the way back and continue to this day. The proprietary stuff started more or less in the 1980's and continues only parallel to FOSS. Though it may make the most noise, it does not do the heavy lifting, especially in regards to the WWW and the Internet.

Anyway, before the 1950's I gather there were no compilers, so code was more or less source. And it went with the hardware.

I also gather that the first compiler showed up at the very beginning of the 1950's and within months software was provided, along with the source, as part of hardware purchases from then on out until the late 1970's or so. So that may provide clues as to what to look for early on.

I am not an authoritative source on history, but I hope this gives you ideas about where to search in the college / university library.

Most of the people from those days are long gone so you'll have to dig through material in old books. The older the better. I'm particularly curious about what is in Computer Connections, a history of the computer industry, which I think covers the 1980's among other things. But I've not be able to get a copy ever.

If you find some of the operating systems books by Andrew Tannenbaum, there might be some info in the introductions. There might be some relevant material in the online lectures by Kirk McKusick, who has taken interest in history, and any of the remaining early BSD contributors on the early days of BSD.

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Hi Sameer,

With same credentials, you can take the test more than once (I just did). That's a shortcoming.

You ought to be able to build it in quite simply - at least after the SUBMIT button.

OK

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I appreciate your views...

pan64
good to hear your views on free, open and proprietary software...

Sorry, I realise I was muddying my terms. When I say I pay for things I mean closed-source as well as open. I had to buy Metallica's album second-hand for moral reasons but, beyond that, I am willing to pay for and enjoy no-free peoducts in both senses of the word.
That said, the rest stands -- I think Stallman is usually right. I'm just too much of a pragmatist and am too lazy to let it stop me enjoying life.

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Turbocapitalist

good inputs and lot of relevant information for me...thanks a lot for contributing your information with me...

Thanks & regards
Sameer Gupta

AnanthaP

It was done intentionally...since this survey was created using google forms, the criteria of 1 response for 1 user would have required sign in to google account...which would have impacted the coverage of survey...many people do not want to sign in with their google/gmail id just to participate in the survey...and many people might not be using google id at all !!! hope it clears the point i am trying to make...Anyways, I can always filter duplicate responses and delete them apart from deleting the extreme out-liars or malicious responses...

ohh...that's really interesting...

That was about the past. At the risk of pontificating, I'll add that regarding the present it's hard to find a sector where FOSS is not dominant. The question is whether the companies have learned to contribute upstream or not. Some have to learn the hard way that it is necessary, even in cases where the licenses do not require it, but the school of hard knocks takes time.

To steal a quote from elsewhere on the net: "Open source does not take you to lunch or pay for nice golf vacations". Despite that, you have in the consumer device market the following samples:

If you look at mobile phones, over 99% are using FOSS. Those using Android or Tizen are rather obiviously doing so, but iOS is basically Darwin with some proprietary glue to keep it from being too useful. The vanishing Blackberry uses QNX which uses a hybrid model, which is OSS minus the ability to redistribute last I checked.

Tablet market share data is harder to find, but if I recall correctly it was over 80% 90% with Android plus iOS. With new TVs and PVRs, you have nearly 100% Linux-based of some kind or other.

Mobile modems (Telewell, ZTE, Huawei, and others) are basically small Linux servers with stripped down daemons and no shell. Your average home routers (D-Link and the others) are similar, but working from VDSL, ADSL, or cable instead of the mobile phone network.

Large network routers (Juniper, Cisco, etc.) are primarily FOSS underneath, though they're locked up like Apple's iOS phones and tablets.

With console gaming, the PS4 is based on FreeBSD. Not sure about Wii but it can be made to boot GNU/Linux.

In supercomputing the top 500 are all FOSS. Though one or two sites might be a hybrid of GNU/Linux with other UNIX-like systems.

In statistics, R has been eating the lunches of both SAS and SPSS for a while now. I expect they will go away soon, leaving just R.

Under the hood, literally, in automottve computing it is Linux with C.A.N. There are shortcomings with CAN itself though. The in-car 'infotainment' systems are predominantly Linux-based and becoming more and more so.

In other categories, Google, Netflix, and (ugh) Facebook are all FOSS companies. Wikipedia and its related projects are all FOSS, too. You'll have to look into the other top companies like Baidu, Tencent, Youtube, Amazon, and VK but I suspect you'll find that their infrastructures are also FOSS, just a guess. Wading past the marketese will be difficult.

That gives the idea about the present. Tying that back to your question about what I mean by proprietary software being an anomaly, there was only a relatively short time span during which it was at the forefront of visibility. Proprietary won't go away completely, but the present is seeing it relegated to the sidelines more and more as things return to the norm. So that makes it more of an anomaly.

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Please don't forget to MANUALLY filter it out later.

OK

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Yes Sure...Thanks a lot...

How were the results? Or is it too early to pester for them?

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