Investigating Linux’s Principles and Philosophy
Christine Bresnahan, Richard Blum · 2012
This chapter focuses on the investigation of Linux's principles and philosophy. Linux's development history is tied to that of Unix and to open source development in general. Open source software is provided with source code and the right to modify and redistribute the source code. This guarantees your ability to use the software in ways that the original author did not anticipate or support, provided you have the knowledge and time to alter it or the resources to hire somebody else to do so. These open source principles have led to a great deal of popular software, particularly in the server arena; however, open source developers have been less able to capture the general public's excitement with applications designed for desktop computers.