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View Full Version : [SOLVED] Critique on my free software essay please



akiratheoni
April 10th, 2008, 10:13 PM
Here's the essay that I wrote for my English class. It's a synthesis project which means we need to put together many sources into one essay.

In my essay, I argue that free software (I use 'free software' to collectively mean free and open source software) is better than proprietary software and also explain the basics of the free software movement and its history. I know that open source and free software are different but I didn't quite know how to put it into the essay and it's not entirely relevant and would just make the essay longer.

It's still a draft so please comment on it. Critique please :)

EDIT: Never mind.

retrow
April 10th, 2008, 10:32 PM
Apache, server software most commonly run on Linux, runs on 50% of all servers whereas 35% run Microsoft IIS as of March 2008 (Netcraft).
I skimmed through the essay and these figures seemed a little incorrect. I looked around and found a few different numbers on different places.

http://www.serverwatch.com/stats/article.php/3739201

This one puts Apache at 73% and M$ at 17%.

akiratheoni
April 10th, 2008, 10:43 PM
I skimmed through the essay and these figures seemed a little incorrect. I looked around and found a few different numbers on different places.

http://www.serverwatch.com/stats/article.php/3739201

This one puts Apache at 73% and M$ at 17%.

Hm, interesting. Mine came from Netcraft but I'll put those ones in. Thanks.

Tomosaur
April 10th, 2008, 10:48 PM
Could be a bad idea sticking this on the web. Many schools use plagiarism detection software, which scan the net for similarities between students' work and the contents of websites. Of course, you can just say that you posted it here, but still - better to avoid the hassle :P

koenn
April 10th, 2008, 11:25 PM
you have some facts wrong - which looks kinda bad in an assignment that is about research and sources.

"When the computer was introduced in the 1970s ..."
"modern computers as we know them (electronical, digital, ...) exist longer than that - probably 1950's (or earlier), defenitely 1960's, eg the space missions in the 60's.
personal computers, then often called 'micro-computers (micro in comparison to 'normal' computers and mini-computers ) indeed first appeared in the 70s

"... programmers spent hours tinkering with software, modifying it to their needs"
not that I know of (and you dont refer to source to convince me otherwise)
I do have read that in some universities, mainly berkely, students spent hours thinkering with software on PDP systems, and later Unix systems, and made it a habit to share their stuff among fellow computer enthousiasts.

This also pre-dates the introduction of personal computers, and went on outside the PC scene (which boomed in the 80s),

... allowed programmers from all around the globe ..."
no way. It was very local : a few universities. The internet, that would make 'global' cooperation possible, was still under construction.

"Microsoft first dominated the computer industry with its command line operating system, ..."
Depends on what you mean.
- The domination of MS in the computer industry began with MS- DOS --> +/- OK, except that it's only true for micro-computers / PC's
-MS was the first company to dminate the computer industry --> not quite : there's an era of pre-PC computing that was dominated by a few other companies. DEC maybey ?


"When version 0.12 was released in 1992 under the GPL, the GNU operating system was finally complete"
Well, it did take some work to make the Linux Kernel fit in the rest of the GNU project, it did not automatically fall into place.


---

I'll leave it to you to find sources to support these comments. They're all over the web.

Some more comments :
"it is tough to sell a product that does not cost anything"
Free software does cost money (to produce it): lots of developpers are payed end/or employed by companies and get payed while working on free/opensource projects.
If your "doesn't cost anything" means that it's given free charge, your sentence reads "it is tough to sell a product that you give a way for free". Yeah, right, don't give it away then.
In fact, the historical examples you refer to of "programmers sharing code" - part of that happend on Unix, which was sold (originally by AT&T), usually under a "source license", granting the customers the right to read and modify the source, and distribute their changes to other customers who had acquired (and paid for) the original product. So it is quite possible to sell "open source" software.

akiratheoni
April 10th, 2008, 11:40 PM
Thanks for the criticism. I'm already at 10 pages and that's supposed to be the max length. I forgot to mention that it's NOT supposed to be comprehensive at all.


you have some facts wrong - which looks kinda bad in an assignment that is about research and sources.

"When the computer was introduced in the 1970s ..."
"modern computers as we know them (electronical, digital, ...) exist longer than that - probably 1950's (or earlier), defenitely 1960's, eg the space missions in the 60's.
personal computers, then often called 'micro-computers (micro in comparison to 'normal' computers and mini-computers ) indeed first appeared in the 70s

I was referring to personal computers so maybe I should note that.



"... programmers spent hours tinkering with software, modifying it to their needs"
not that I know of (and you dont refer to source to convince me otherwise)
I do have read that in some universitis, mainly berkely, students spend hours thinkering with software on PDP systems, and later Unix systems, and made it a habit to share their stuff among fellow computer enthousiasts.

Is this part really that bad that it needs to be changed? I don't think I can cite a specific source but if the programmers had access to the source code, don't you think they would have spent time modifying it? Or are you saying that they didn't tinker with it at all?



... allowed programmers from all around the globe ..."
no way. It was very local : a few universities. The internet, that would make 'global' cooperation possible, was still under construction.

Oops. :)



"Microsoft first dominated the computer industry with its command line operating system, ..."
Depends on what you mean.
- The domination of MS in the computer industrie began with MS- DOS --> +/- OK, except that it's only true for micro-computers / PC's
I am mostly referring to personal computers in this essay.



-MS was the first company to dminate the computer industrie --> not quite : there's an ero of pre-PC computing that was dominated by a few other companies. DEC maybey ?
Again, I'm referring to the personal computer period.



"When version 0.12 was released in 1992 under the GPL, the GNU operating system was finally complete"
Well, it did take some work to make the Linux Kernel fit in the rest of the GNU project, it did not automatically fall into place.

Valid point, but I'm not going to mention that simply because it complicates things...



---

I'll leave it to you to find sources to support these comments. They're all over the web.

Some more comments :
"it is tough to sell a product that does not cost anything"
Free software does cost money (to produce it): lots of developpers are payed end/or employed by companies and get payed while working on free/opensource projects.
If your "doesn't cost anything" means that it's given free charge, your sentence reads "it is tough to sell a product that you give a way for free". Yeah, right, don't give it away then.
In fact, the historical examples you refer to of "programmers sharing code" - part of that happend on Unix, which was sold (originally by AT&T) but usually with a "source license", granting the customers the right to read and modify the source, and distribute their changes to other customers who had acquired (and paid for) the original product. So it is quite possible to sell "open source" software.

I know that. Free software draws up a lot of questions so in the essay what I do is that I mention a lot of misconceptions (one of them is the passage you are referring to) and I'll just make it more clear that it is a misconception.


Could be a bad idea sticking this on the web. Many schools use plagiarism detection software, which scan the net for similarities between students' work and the contents of websites. Of course, you can just say that you posted it here, but still - better to avoid the hassle :P

Good point. I'll be removing it soon in favor of a PDF copy when I get home though so it won't be an issue.

Tomosaur
April 11th, 2008, 02:13 AM
Good point. I'll be removing it soon in favor of a PDF copy when I get home though so it won't be an issue.

Software can read hosted PDF files too. The only real option is to just not have it anywhere publically accessible on the net.

akiratheoni
April 11th, 2008, 02:27 AM
Software can read hosted PDF files too. The only real option is to just not have it anywhere publically accessible on the net.

Yeah, I realized that too. Well the essay is due monday and I'm going to talk to the teacher about it so I think I'll just remove it instead.

Thanks for the suggestions though everyone :)