Timeline of open source software
Encyclopedia
This article presents a timeline of popular free
/open-source software
. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of free software
.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
/open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of free software
History of free software
This is a timeline-style look at how free and open-source software has evolved and existed from its inception.The phrase "free software" refers to software that is liberally licensed, allowing the end user more freedoms than conventional-software licences. This is not to be confused with software...
.
1980s
| Date | Project | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Emacs Emacs Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively... |
The original EMACS was a set of Editor MACroS for the TECO editor written in 1976 by Richard Stallman Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage... , initially together with Guy L. Steele, Jr. Guy L. Steele, Jr. Guy Lewis Steele Jr. , also known as "The Great Quux", and GLS , is an American computer scientist who has played an important role in designing and documenting several computer programming languages.-Biography:... . Later in 1984 the GNU Emacs was released under a GNU General Public License. |
| 1982 | TeX TeX TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as .... |
Originally written by Donald Knuth Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms... in 1978, the new version of TeX was rewritten from scratch and was published in 1982. |
| 1984 | X window system X Window System The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers... |
X originated at MIT in 1984. The current protocol version, X11, appeared in September 1987. The X.Org X.Org Foundation The X.Org Foundation is the organization holding the stewardship for the development of the X Window System. It was founded on 22 January 2004.... Foundation leads the X project, with the current reference implementation, X.org Server, available as free software under the MIT License MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms... and similar permissive licenses. |
| 1987 | GCC GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain... |
Written by Richard Stallman Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage... with contributions from others as the C compiler for the GNU Project. Later the project would be known as the GNU Compiler Collection. |
| 1987 | Perl Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular... |
Perl, the dynamic programming language Dynamic programming language Dynamic programming language is a term used broadly in computer science to describe a class of high-level programming languages that execute at runtime many common behaviors that other languages might perform during compilation, if at all... was created by Larry Wall Larry Wall Larry Wall is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.-Education:Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976.... and first released in 1987. |
1990s
| Date | Project | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Linux Kernel Linux kernel The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software.... |
Started by Linus Torvalds Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator... , Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it would grow from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to its state in 2007 of about 290 megabytes of source under the GNU General Public License. |
| 1991 | Python Python (programming language) Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive... |
First released by Guido Van Rossum Guido van Rossum Guido van Rossum is a Dutch computer programmer who is best known as the author of the Python programming language. In the Python community, Van Rossum is known as a "Benevolent Dictator For Life" , meaning that he continues to oversee the Python development process, making decisions where necessary... in 1991. |
| 1992 | 386BSD 386BSD 386BSD, sometimes called "Jolix", was a free Unix-like operating system based on BSD, first released in 1992. It ran on PC compatible computer systems based on the Intel 80386 microprocessor... |
386BSD was written mainly by Berkeley alumni Lynne Jolitz Lynne Jolitz Lynne Greer Jolitz is a figure in free software and founded many startups in Silicon Valley with her husband William.Lynne Jolitz is probably most famous for her work in pioneering open source operating systems with 386BSD with her husband... and William Jolitz William Jolitz William Frederick Jolitz , commonly known as Bill Jolitz, is best known for developing the 386BSD operating system from 1989 to 1994 along with his wife Lynne Jolitz.Jolitz received his BA in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.... . The 386BSD releases made to the public beginning in 1992. |
| 1992 | Samba Samba (software) Samba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain... |
Andrew Tridgell Andrew Tridgell Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell is an Australian computer programmer best known as the author of and contributor to the Samba file server, and co-inventor of the rsync algorithm.... developed the first version of Samba in 1992, at the Australian National University. |
| 1993, March | NetBSD NetBSD NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,... |
The project began as a result of frustration within the 386BSD developer community with the pace and direction of the operating system's development. The four founders of the NetBSD project were Chris Demetriou, Theo de Raadt, Adam Glass and Charles Hannum. |
| 1993, Dec | FreeBSD FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant... |
FreeBSD's development began in 1993 with a quickly growing, unofficial patchkit maintained by users of the 386BSD operating system.The first official release was FreeBSD 1.0 in December 1993. |
| 1993 | Wine Wine (software) Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like... |
Bob Amstadt (the initial project leader) and Eric Youngdale started the project in 1993 as a way to run Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... applications on Linux. |
| 1995, June | PHP PHP PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document... |
Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf Rasmus Lerdorf Rasmus Lerdorf is a Danish programmer with Canadian citizenship and is most notable as the creator of the PHP scripting language. He authored the first two versions... in 1994, it was released publicly on June 1995. |
| 1995 | GIMP GIMP GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and... |
Created by Spencer Kimball Spencer Kimball Spencer Kimball is a computer programmer most notable for his early work on the GNU Image Manipulation Program .In 1995, while students at the University of California at Berkeley, Kimball and his classmate Peter Mattis developed the first version of The GIMP as a class project... and Peter Mattis Peter Mattis Peter Mattis is a computer programmer most notable for his early work on the GNU Image Manipulation Program .In 1995, while students at the University of California at Berkeley, Mattis and his classmate Spencer Kimball developed the first version of The GIMP as a class project... , the project originally stood for General Image Manipulation Program. |
| 1996 | Apache Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone... |
The first version of the Apache web server was created by Robert McCool, who was heavily involved with the NCSA NCSA NCSA may refer to:*National Center for Supercomputing Applications**NCSA HTTPd, an early webserver developed at this center*University of North Carolina School of the Arts*National Cyber Security Alliance... web server, known simply as NCSA HTTPd NCSA HTTPd NCSA HTTPd was a web server originally developed at the NCSA by Robert McCool and others. It was among the earliest web servers developed, following Tim Berners-Lee's CERN httpd, Tony Sanders' Plexus server, and some others. It was for some time the natural counterpart to the Mosaic web browser in... . |
| 1996 | KDE KDE KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems... |
KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich Matthias Ettrich Matthias Ettrich is a German computer scientist known for his contributions to the KDE and LyX projects.- School :... , who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. |
| 1997, August | GNOME GNOME GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software... |
The initial project leaders for GNOME were Miguel de Icaza Miguel de Icaza Miguel de Icaza is a Mexican free software programmer, best known for starting the GNOME and Mono projects.-Early years:Miguel de Icaza was born in Mexico City and studied at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México but never received a degree. He came from a family of scientists in which his... and Federico Mena Federico Mena Federico Mena Quintero is a Mexican computer programmer.He wrote the GNOME Canvas while working at Red Hat. He also maintained GIMP for a time, and was one of the first hires at Ximian, now owned by Novell, where he still works... . |
| 1999, August | OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software... |
Originally developed as the proprietary software application suite StarOffice StarOffice StarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999... by the German company StarDivision, the code was purchased in 1999 by Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982... . The code was made available free of charge in August 1999. On July 19, 2000, Sun Microsystems announced that it was making the source code of StarOffice available for download under both the LGPL and the Sun Industry Standards Source License Sun Industry Standards Source License The Sun Industry Standards Source License is now a retired free and open source license, recognized as such by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative . Under SISSL, developers could modify and distribute source code and derived binaries freely. Furthermore, developers could... (SISSL) |
2000s
| Date | Project | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | MediaWiki MediaWiki MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites... |
There was no name for the project, until the Wikimedia Foundation was announced in June 2003, when name MediaWiki was coined by a Wikipedia contributor. |
| 2003, April | Firefox | Descended from the Mozilla Application Suite Mozilla Application Suite The Mozilla Application Suite is a cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator... , the project started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Project. Originally titled Phoenix, then renamed as Firebird, the project was finally named Mozilla Firefox. The version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. |