path: root/script.txt

History of Software Freedom
===========================

Hacker Subculture
-----------------
~3:00

slide:
	Hacking

notes:
	I'll discuss the hacker subculture first, since hacker values permeate and
	give context to the history of software freedom.
	Can anyone tell me what "hacking" is?
	<expect something about breaking into computers>
	What if I told you that this is a hack?

slide:
	<image of MIT nyan cat>

notes:
	This is a nyan cat that hackers hanged in MIT's Lobby 7 last September.  MIT
	is actually where the hacker subculture flourished.

slide:
	<image of TMRC railroad>

notes:
	Through the 1950s, MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club built a huge train layout.
	Under this layout was a complex matrix of wires, relays, and crossbar
	switches, called "The System".  Members of the Club's Signals and Power
	Subcommittee were obsessed with understanding and improving The System.
	They developed a jargon of terms including "hack", which described any
	innovative project or feat undertaken with wild pleasure.  They proudly
	called themselves "hackers".

slide:
	<photo of MIT hackers with Spacewar!>

notes:
	Eventually, the MIT model train hackers found computers and enthusiastically
	began programming them.  As they honed their skills, a set of beliefs
	formed.  Steven Levy codified these beliefs in the six tenets of the Hacker
	Ethic.

slide:
	The Hacker Ethic:
	 1. Access to computers---and anything that might teach you something about
	    the way the world works---should be unlimited and total.  Always yield
	    to the Hands-On Imperative!
	 2. All information should be free.
	 3. Mistrust Authority: Promote Decentralization.
	 4. Hackers should be judged on their hacking, not bogus criteria such as
	    degrees, age, race, or position.
	 5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
	 6. Computers can change your life for the better.

notes:
	One: Access to computers---and anything that might teach you something about
	the way the world works---should be unlimited and total.  Always yield to
	the Hands-On Imperative!
	Two: All information should be free.
	Three: Mistrust Authority: Promote Decentralization.
	Four: Hackers should be judged on their hacking, not bogus criteria such as
	degrees, age, race, or position.
	Five: You can create art and beauty on a computer.
	Six: Computers can change your life for the better.

slide:
	> The word hack doesn't really have 69 different meanings.  In fact, hack
	> has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one which defies
	> articulation.
	-- Phil Agre
	>    hacker
	>       A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the
	>       internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in
	>       particular.  The term is often misused in a pejorative context,
	>       where "cracker" would be the correct term.  See also: cracker.
	-- RFC 1392

notes:
	As MIT hacker Phil Agre notes, the word "hack" has "one meaning, an
	extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation".  Renowned 
	hacker Dr. Richard Stallman defines "hacking" as "exploring the limits of
	what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness".
	As noted in RFC 1392 and elsewhere, the term "hacking" is often incorrectly
	used to describe breaking into computer systems.  The alternative term
	"cracking" has been offered for such malicious activities.

slide:
	<image of police car on Great Dome>

notes:
	The word "hack" has long been used at MIT to describe elaborate college
	pranks, such as assembling what appeared to be a campus police car atop the
	Great Dome.

slide:
	Network Working Group                                        D. Waitzman
	Request for Comments: 1149                                       BBN STC
	                                                            1 April 1990
	
	
	   A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
	
	Status of this Memo
	
	   This memo describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of
	   IP datagrams in avian carriers.  This specification is primarily
	   useful in Metropolitan Area Networks.  This is an experimental, not
	   recommended standard.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

notes:
	On April 1, 1990, the Internet Engineering Task Force displayed its sense of
	humor with RFC 1149, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on
	Avian Carriers".  This hack defined a way to transmit network data over
	carrier pidgeons.

slide:
	<photo of BLUG members with pidgeons>

notes:
	Eleven years later, the Bergen Linux User Group in Norway implemented the
	standard on GNU/Linux, recording a mere 55% packet loss and an average
	round-trip time of one hour and 46 minutes.


An Age of Freedom
-----------------
~2:00

slide:
	In the beginning, there was freedom.
	  * Software freedom is as old as computing.
	  * Sharing software is to computing as sharing recipes is to cooking.
	  * Software was free out of necessity and culture.

notes:
	Having defined hacking and detailing hacker values, I'd like to explore the
	history of software freedom.
	Free software and open source are not new ideas.  Software freedom is in
	fact as old as computing is.  Roughly, sharing software is to computing as
	sharing recipes is to cooking.
	Software was normally distributed in a human-readable form because users
	often modified it to run on different computers and operating systems, to
	fix bugs, or to add features.

slide:
	<image of PDP-1>

notes:
	Here we see the PDP-1, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1959.
	This was one of the first minicomputers produced.  After its donation to MIT
	in 1962, it became the favorite machine of the budding hacker culture.
	But the PDP-1 was sold without software.  Users wrote their own software,
	and they realized that it would be terribly inefficient for everyone to
	write from scratch all the software they needed to run their computers.  So
	instead, they shared what they wrote.

slide:
	<image of DECUS No. 85 cover>

notes:
	In 1961, the Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society was founded to
	facilitate the free exchange of information between users and the
	manufacturer.  Over the years, they collected and published a large number
	of programs to run on the PDP-1.

slide:

notes:
	In 1969, four AT&T employees wrote for the PDP-7 an operating system called
	Unix.  It was to be "a system around which a fellowship could form".  Under
	the settlement terms of a 1958 antitrust case, AT&T was required to license
	non-telephone technology to anyone who asked.  Subsequently, Unix was
	distributed, with source code, to universities, corporations, and the U.S.
	government.  Lion's Commentary, a book published in 1976, documented Unix's
	source code.  Throughout the 1970s, universities worldwide contributed
	greatly to the development of Unix.


Proprietarization
-----------------
~2:30

slide:
	<Bill Gates's Arizona mugshot>

notes:
	Then things started to change.  Many people attribute this to this man, Bill
	Gates.  But it actually began even before Gates entered college.

slide:
	???

notes:
	In 1969, IBM stopped providing software in source form along with their
	hardware.  Instead, they began separately selling binary copies of software
	at a high cost.  Thus, they pioneered what is now called the "software
	industry".

slide:
	<some excerpt of "Open Letter to Hobbyists">

notes:
	In 1976, Bill Gates, General Partner of Micro-Soft, was fed up with members
	of the Homebrew Computing Club sharing software.  He published in the Club's
	newsletter an "Open Letter to Hobbyists", accusing Club members of
	"stealing".  He claimed that sharing is unfair and prevents the writing of
	good software, apparently forgetting about the software that was good
	*because* it was shared for years.

slide:
	???

notes:
	But note that sharing software was still perfectly legal.  This was fixed in
	1980 when Congress passed the Computer Software Copyright Act.  This
	legislation did two things.  First, it added to Copyright Law a definition
	for "computer program", thus making software copyrightable.  Second, it
	amended Title 17 of the United States Code, section 117 to declare that
	running a computer program is not an infringement of copyright.  So, sharing
	and modifying software without a license became illegal.  But no license was
	necessary to run a program.

slide:
	???

notes:
	Then companies started writing contracts called "End-user license
	agreements".  How many of you have read every such contract to which you've
	agreed?
	<expect no hands>
	These contracts typically circumvent section 117 by arguing that the
	software they cover is "licensed, not sold".  That is, a contract claims
	that you don't own the Microsoft Windows CD you buy from a store.  Microsoft
	owns the disk and gives you permission to run it.  The legality of this
	practice is disputed.
	Furthermore, these contracts take away many otherwise legally-protected
	rights.  By agreeing to one, you forfeit rights to make fair use of the
	software, to use it in a house with more than five computers, to reverse
	engineer it to learn how it works, or even to talk about how well it works.


The GNU Project
---------------


Linux
-----


Open Source
-----------