Free Software Philosophy GPL and BSD

Free Software Philosophy GPL and BSD

Richard Stallman and GPL

Richard Stallman, who worked as a researcher in the artificial intelligence lab at MIT in 1984, has set out the philosophy of free software and he has brought the philosophy and products in a place where they are today with the support he found. Stallman's starting point was a contradiction between the way scientific development is achieved and the production and development of industrial computer software.

Scientific innovation is only possible through the sharing of inventions, experiences and all other conclusions of academic researchers with the public. These scholarly publications, where all details are shared, allow an investigator to conduct studies that may be the continuation of previous researchers' work. If this sharing were not so clear and widespread, the pace of scientific progress and the level of our society today would be much lower.

Stallman also implements the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which foresees that software must be "free" and distributed freely and with all the details (source code, etc.). The GNU General Public License (GPL) is intended to promote and use the software license. This license is a license that allows software to be freely distributed and to make the software public domain.

The FSF has adopted the goal of producing a "free operating system" consisting entirely of free software components. All critical components, including text editor, kernel, compiler, etc. has been developed or is being developed by the FSF.  

 BSD License

UNIX is being developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories. After the division of AT&T, AT&T, the proprietor of UNIX, announces that they abandoned to distribute UNIX freely (while the operating system is initially distributed free to all clients) and plans to sell the software for a license fee,  resembling the definition of "free software".


Until then, the academic environment that uses UNIX and contributes to its development is not delayed in finding its own way out. A group of developers from Berkeley pick up UNIX from where AT&T left off free distribution and continue to produce and distribute a free UNIX with the support of other contributors. From this point on, UNIX is divided into two main branches; "AT&T UNIX" and "BSD UNIX".

BSD UNIX is distributed under the "BSD Software License". This license is a more liberal license than the GPL. The BSD license defines the software literally as "fountain". The software is free to use, as you wish. The condition of sharing the changes made with the public of GPL License is not subject to the BSD license. The person receiving the software can do whatever they want and does not have to share what they do with others.

Today, many popular software are distributed under the BSD license. The Apache web server is distributed under a BSD license and many vendors (Oracle, IBM, etc.) re-name Apache as their web server.

BSD UNIX, which was discontinued to develop by Berkeley in the mid-90s, was later broken down into many branches. Each of these branches (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD) is still being maintained and distributed under the BSD license.

To read my previous article: What is Unix and Linux ?