7

According to the Wikipedia article on open-source, the philosophy of sharing code has been used in projects since the early computer days (mostly through Universities sharing code). However, I'm interested to know what (and when) was the first commercial open-source software (successfull or not)?

If there's any confusion on commercial, I define it as thus: "Having profit as a chief aim".

Improve this question
4
  • MySQL was likely the first that set a reference on how to monetize OSS, with their money versus time approach
    – gnat
    Jun 8, 2012 at 6:54
  • 2
    @gnat: I doubt that MySQL were the first. They might be the first ones with high-ish public visibility. I can think of at least RedHat that predate them. And there are probably much earlier examples.
    – Joachim Sauer
    Jun 8, 2012 at 7:03
  • @JoachimSauer good catch - as far as I can see, RH beats MySQL in terms of timing ('93 vs '95). And per my recollection, they were also first to set a reference - though it's hard to tell which project had better media coverage back then
    – gnat
    Jun 8, 2012 at 7:26
  • 2
    @gnat: at the time RH had much larger visibility to me in IT press coverage, because each year people were constantly wondering whether that year was the year that linux was going to conquer the desktop from microsoft, and RH was the most likely player to do that.
    – Joeri Sebrechts
    Jun 8, 2012 at 7:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

In the good old days of Apple II and Commodore 64 and many others and before IBM PC, there were magazines which published source code of BASIC programs to be typed and run on these early computers. Customers paid the magazine and progammers got paid by the line of code.

I think this qualifies as commercial open source software, though I would not be so sure that this is the first example.

Improve this answer
6
  • 2
    Was there any license information attached to the source code? If not, then it doesn't really qualify as open source.
    – Joachim Sauer
    Jun 8, 2012 at 7:47
  • 1
    I don't rembember the details but I am mostly certain that programmers who sent their code had to agree on specific terms of publication and customers had to agree on specific terms of use.
    – mouviciel
    Jun 8, 2012 at 7:57
  • Yes, but did those "specific terms" comply with the FSD and the OSD?
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Jun 8, 2012 at 9:01
  • @JörgWMittag - It was thirty years ago. Any resemblance to current standards is purely coincidental.
    – mouviciel
    Jun 8, 2012 at 11:04
  • 1
    Yes, but that's what open source means. Personally, I am too young to have been a member of that particular scene, but I did start with the Amiga, where very similar distribution channels were equally commonplace. And those were definitely not open source. They didn't allow re-distribution. They didn't allow modification. They didn't allow any of the things in the FSD or OSD. They were proprietary software, just distributed on paper instead of on floppy disks.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Jun 8, 2012 at 11:36

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.