Peter > What's the earliest reference to open source anyone knows? I found > this in a 1965 paper: > > The Multics system will be published when it is operating > substantially, and will therefore be available for > implementation on any equipment with suitable characteristics.
Yes. This fits in with everything that I have read and seen for the past 30 years. I suppose that it might sound strange to anyone else but even back in 1974 when I was working next to one of the first ICL commercial computers here in Sheffield there were people around me talking about ideas that are like open source software of the present day. Many "open source" ideas have come and gone. The present day version is probably the purest version (maybe). Uuuhhmmm.... Linux ? Yeh.. it's a word I thought up back in 1982 when I was in the Royal Air Force after I found out that UNIX was in need of something better. Why it took Linus 13 years to write the code for the word I had invented when I worked on the Nimrod re-fuelling protect I do not know... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Nimrod Sadly, we lost some of our friends from Oz while I was working on this :( We still miss them now (lest we forget?) Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/knoppix-founder-klaus-knopper-speaks/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html