FOSSDA Project Introduced
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FOSSDA Project to Record Open Source History
The free and open source software movement was started by a generation of technical visionaries who believed that access to information is fundamental to human rights in our digital age. It grew into a movement that has transformed software development, business, and modern society. Open source projects have resulted in global collaboration and the creation of Linux, the most popular operating system on earth–along with community tools like Firefox, Sendmail, and the backbone of the Internet. Today, there are over 50 publicly traded commercial open source software companies representing billions in value, and they are in the process of changing how business works today.
“FOSSDA is about the personal stories of those who came together to revolutionize our modern technological world,” said Heather Meeker, FOSSDA’s founder. “A lot has been written about open source development and open source licensing — some practical, some dogmatic, some thought-provoking. But the FOSSDA Project is about a trailblazing human journey.”
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Apache and Mozilla Sponsor Organization to Collect FOSS Oral History
Since you’re reading FOSS Force, you probably don’t need to be told that there’s a rich history behind Linux and open source, going back to at least 1983, which is when Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project.
Along the way Stallman wrote his requirements for The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software and issued the GPL; Linus Torvalds started work on Linux, the operating system which has in many ways taken over modern computing; BSD battled AT&T for the right to issue Unix software as open source; and more.
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FOSSDA: Preserving the history of open-source and free software | Open Source Watch
Today, we take for granted that open source is The way to create software. It wasn't always that way. It wasn't just that people like then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, considered "Linux is a cancer," many didn't take open source seriously at all. That was then. This is now. But, we shouldn't forget that free software and open-source software were revolutionary in their day. The newly formed Free and Open Source Stories Digital Archive Foundation (FOSSDA) knows this, so it's seeking to record and archive the stories of the open-source software pioneers.
FOSSDA is a not-for-profit foundation that aims to engage with the pioneers of open-source software and share their legacies with the world. The FOSSDA Project will create digital recordings and archives of the history of the open-source software movement, documenting the stories of the developers, visionaries, and strategists who challenged the establishment and changed how we interact with the world.