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Correct free software history #1128

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Expand Up @@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ While Wikis themselves have found significant applications, they have had an eve
[^WB]: World Bank, "Population ages 15-64, total" at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.1564.TO.
[^TaiwanMI]: Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior, "Household Registration Statistics in January 2024" at https://www.ris.gov.tw/app/en/2121?sn=24038775.

OSS emerged in reaction to the secretive and commercial direction of the software industry that emerged in the 1970s. The free and open development approach of the early days of ARPANET was sustained even after the withdrawal of public funding, thanks to a global volunteer workforce. [Richard Stallman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman), opposing the closed nature of the [Unix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix) OS developed by AT&T, led the "free software movement", promoting the “GNU General Public License” that allowed users to run, study, share, and modify the source code. This was eventually rebranded as OSS, with a goal to replace Unix with an open-source alternative, [Linux](https://www.linux.org/), led by [Linus Torvalds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds).
Free software, and later OSS as a distinct framing, emerged in reaction to the secretive and commercial direction of the software industry that took hold in the 1970s. The free and open development approach of the early days of ARPANET was sustained even after the withdrawal of public funding, thanks to a global volunteer workforce. [Richard Stallman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman), opposing the unjust social system that nonfree software imposed on users, led the "free software movement" in the 1980s, promoting the “GNU General Public License” and the moral entitlement of users to run, study, share, and modify source code. In 1998, the Open Source Initiative labeled practical aspects of this approach as "open source," a related but distinct framing that emphasized collaborative development and adoption. [Linux](https://www.linux.org/), led by [Linus Torvalds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds), became one prominent GPL-licensed success, alongside many other OSS components, including internet infrastructure software such as BIND and Sendmail.

OSS has expanded across various internet and computing sectors, even earning support from formerly hostile companies like Microsoft, now owner of leading OSS service company GitHub and employer of one of the authors of this book. This represents the practice of ⿻ on a large scale; emergent, collective co-creation of shared global resources. Communities form around shared interests, freely build on each other’s work, vet contributions through unpaid maintainers, and "fork" projects into parallel versions in case of irreconcilable differences. The protocol “git” supports collaborative tracking of changes, with platforms like GitHub and GitLab facilitating millions of developers' participation. This book is a product of such collaboration and has been supported by Microsoft and GitHub.

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