The birth of the open source enterprise stack

The birth of the open source enterprise stack

Posted Jun 29, 2006 12:13 UTC (Thu) by jpmcc (subscriber, #2452)
Parent article: The birth of the open source enterprise stack

It was the rapid uptake of the Internet by business in the mid-1990s that led to free software being used by companies, not just their employees.

Not so: open-source was born in companies in the early dawn of computing. The earliest documented example of an open-source project in the literature is the SHARE project launched by 17 early adopters of the IBM 704 computer in August 1955. By its first anniversary, the project had created 700 programs and had saved of the order of 1.5 million US Dollars.

Open-source started in the commercial world - it made sense for companies over fifty years ago; it makes even more sense today. Shame that the IT industry lost the plot somewhere along the line.

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