“Open source software has existed for many years. But we have
only had a common definition and term for 10 years. We know this,
because it was only in April 1998 that publisher Tim O’Reilly
hosted a summit for the authors of several well-known software
packages–including GNU founder Richard Stallman, Perl author Larry
Wall, Linux creator Linus Torvalds, and Python author Guido van
Rossum. Common to all of these authors was not just the quality and
popularity of their software, but also the fact that they
distributed them free of charge, including the source code.“O’Reilly realized that for all of their personal and
philosophical differences, there was something common to this
group, and he asked them to find common ground…”
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.