Podcast: Was open source inevitable? (Part 3)

EPISODE 3: OPERATING SYSTEMS FOR A HORIZONTAL STACK

In this four-part miniseries within the Innovate @Open podcast, we explore the alternative histories of open source software through the voices of many of the people who lived through its rise.

In this third and penultimate episode, we play out the great Linux vs. Windows rivalry of the 1990s and 2000s. What might have happened had Linux Torvalds decided to take up ice sculpture instead of writing Linux? Or what could a kinder, gentler, and more politic Microsoft have done to steer history further in its favor to the detriment of the Unix and Unix-like operating systems?

On this episode, we're joined by the following guests:

• Steven Vaughn-Nichols, CBS Interactive
• Bryan Cantrill, Oxide Computer
• Brian Proffitt, Red Hat
• Rob Hirschfeld, RackN

Related links:

• How Open Source Ate Software by Gordon Haff (Apress)
• The State of Enterprise Open Source (A Red Hat report)
• Podcast: If Linux didn't exist, would we have had to invent it?
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 4

Listen to the podcast (MP3 - 27:03)

Transcript for the miniseries

Podcast: Was open source inevitable (Part 2)

EPISODE 2: THE FOUNDATIONS OF A MOVEMENT

In this four-part miniseries within the Innovate @Open podcast, we explore the alternative histories of open source software through the voices of many of the people who lived through its rise. The central question is “Was open source inevitable?” Not necessarily in the particulars but in the macro.

In this second episode, we consider whether some of the foundational elements of modern open source were inevitable. Unix is intertwined with the history of open source, including but not limited to Linux. Did something like it have to come about? And what about Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation? Would things have played out differently absent this political dimension of free software? Finally, what of the role of copyright law and licenses more broadly.

On this episode, we're joined by the following guests:

• William Henry, Red Hat
• Mike Bursell, Red Hat
• Dave Neary, Red Hat
• Richard Fontana, Red Hat
• Luis Villa, Tidelift

Related links:

• How Open Source Ate Software by Gordon Haff (Apress)
• The State of Enterprise Open Source (A Red Hat report)
• GNU Project
• History of Unix (Wikipedia)
• Part 1
• Part 3
• Part 4

Note: This podcast references the University of Washington license for Sendmail. Sendmail uses the Sendmail license written at the University of Washington.

Listen to the podcast (MP3 - 31:40)

Transcript for the miniseries

Podcast: Was open source inevitable? (Part 1)

EPISODE 1: SETTING THE STAGE

In this four-part miniseries within the Innovate @Open podcast, we explore the alternative histories of open source software through the voices of many of the people who lived through its rise. The central question is “Was open source inevitable?” Not necessarily in the particulars but in the macro.

In this first episode, we consider those factors that probably were inevitable in more or less the form that we find them today. We then take the listener through the history of open source software by way of background for the upcoming episodes.

On this episode, we're joined by the following guests:

• Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, by way of a clip from a 1996 talk at MIT
• Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who ran internet and then Linux strategy at IBM
• Chris Aniszczyk, Linux Foundation
• Harish Pillay, Red Hat
• Jan Wildeboer, Red Hat

Related links:

• How Open Source Ate Software by Gordon Haff (Apress)
• The State of Enterprise Open Source (A Red Hat report)
• Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Listen to the podcast (MP3 - 29:57)

Transcript for the miniseries