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March 6, 2000 | Free software is free speech. Bill Joy, a programmer* extraordinaire who co-founded the computer workstation manufacturer Sun Microsystems, suggests that that belief is an outgrowth of the academic tradition of sharing research results with others. And that tradition, he observes, is at least 1,000 years old, going back to the founding of what is generally considered to be the first modern European university -- Irnerius's University of Bologna. University researchers, from computing's earliest days, have long spearheaded research and development in both computer hardware and software, so it should come as little surprise that academic customs influence how some of them view their work. But did free software really begin at Bologna, nearly a millenium before the invention of the computer? Not, certainly, in any literal sense. And yet it is still worthwhile to think about free software in the context of nearly 1,000 years of intellectual curiosity and academic freedom. To many programmers, code is a means of expression; a form of speech; a way of seeing, understanding and interacting with the world. To put into place proprietary restraints restricting that speech is a repugnant act of censorship. Sharing source code is not just a way of creating software -- it is a way of life, a passion and a faith. But free software is also fundamentally a software development methodology. As such, it owes much of its vigor to the efforts of programmers constantly looking for more effective ways of getting their work done. The drive for efficiency is no recent development in the software world, either. From the very beginning of the commercial computing era, programmers have realized that working together -- even across corporate lines -- makes eminently good sense. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- In December 1952, IBM rolled out its first commercially sold electronic computer, the 701 -- also known by the quaint name "the Defense Calculator," since nearly every one of the 19 701s manufactured was rented out (for a pricey $15,000 a month) either to the United States Defense Department or to aerospace companies living off of Defense largesse. Writing software for the 701 was a slow, painful process, made even more difficult by the lack of programming tools that today's hackers take for granted. The most pressing need was for a "compiler"* -- a program that would translate other software programs into instructions that the 701 could understand. Each company that rented a 701 needed a compiler, but writing one from scratch would be a time consuming and expensive task. There had to be a better way. A group of West Coast aerospace companies -- pillars of the Cold War economy like Lockheed, Douglas and North American Aviation -- joined together to pool their resources. Thus was born PACT -- the Project for the Advancement of Coding Techniques. Possibly the first example of programmers who worked for directly competing companies sharing source code, PACT set an example that today's open-source start-ups are vigorously imitating. "All parties concerned recognized that the days of 'going it alone' had to end," recalls Irwin Greenwald, a programmer who worked at the RAND Corporation think tank, which was actively involved in facilitating the collaboration. "It was too expensive both in dollars and time to completion." Greenwald's memory is that the urge to collaborate came from technical staff at the separate companies who then sold management on the idea. If so, this is a point worth noting: Programmers know that one of the best ways to write code is to collaborate, and if that means sharing notes with your competitors, so be it. The point is to get the job done. As another participant in the project, Wesley S. Melahn, reported at the time, "The first few months of experience seem to indicate that the co-operating computer groups will be hansomely repaid for the small investment in PACT I by the savings in coding and machine time. Perhaps the greatest dividends will come from the demonstration that co-operative undertakings by groups with diversified interests can succeed and can speed up the development of the art of machine computation." Never mind all that hifalutin stuff about academic freedom and code as "expression"; sharing source code is simply a technically superior strategy for software development. The true roots of free software can be traced back to the bald desire of the military-industrial complex to operate more efficiently. |
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