Christine Peterson finally tells the story of that fateful day two decades ago.
February 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the term “open source software”. As open source software has grown in popularity and provided the momentum for powerful and important changes in this era, we have carefully reflected on its birth and rise.
I am the creator of the term “open source software”, which I proposed when I was the executive director of the Foresight Institute</rt>. Unlike others, I am not a software developer, so I thank Linux programmer Todd Anderson for supporting this term and bringing it to the group discussion.
This is my account of how I thought of it, how I proposed it, and the subsequent impact. Of course, there are other accounts of the term, such as those written by Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman, and mine was written on January 2, 2006.
But it is only today that I make it public.
The term “open source software” was specifically promoted to make this field more understandable to newcomers and business people, and its promotion was considered necessary for a wider user community. The earlier term “free software</rt>” was not suitable not because it had political connotations, but because it would mislead newcomers to focus on price. So a term was needed that focused on the key source code and would not confuse new users. The first term that appeared at the right time and met these requirements was quickly accepted: open source</rt>.
This term had been used in “intelligence” (i.e., espionage) activities for a long time, but as far as I know, it was never used in the software field before 1998. The following is the story of how the term “open source software” became popular and became the name of an industry and a movement.
Computer Security Meetings
In late 1997, the Foresight Institute</rt> began holding weekly meetings to discuss computer security issues. The institute is a non-profit think tank that focuses on nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, and the security and reliability of both depend on software security. We identified free software as a promising method to improve software security and reliability, and sought ways to promote it. Interest in free software began to grow outside the programming community, and it became increasingly clear that an opportunity to change the world was coming. However, we were not clear on what to do because we were groping at the time.
In these meetings, we discussed the need to adopt a new term due to the “confusing” factor. The main point was as follows: For those new to “free software”, they would take “free” as “free” in price. Old-timers would start explaining, usually like this: “We mean ‘free’ as in ‘freedom’, not ‘free’ as in ‘free beer’.” At this point, the discussion about software would turn into a discussion about the price of alcoholic beverages. The problem was not that it couldn’t be explained — the problem was that the term for an important concept shouldn’t confuse newcomers. So a clearer term was needed. The term free software had no political problems; the problem was that the term couldn’t clearly indicate its concept to newcomers.
Open Netscape
On February 2, 1998, Eric Raymond visited Netscape and planned with it to release the source code of its browser under a free software-style license. We met that night at the Foresight Institute’s office in Los Altos</rt> to discuss and refine our plans. In addition to Eric and me, active participants included Brian Behlendorf, Michael Tiemann, Todd Anderson, Mark S. Miller, and Ka-Ping Yee. But at that meeting, the field was still described as “free software”, or in Brian’s words, “source-available” software.
In this town, Eric used the Foresight Institute as a base for operations. During his visit, he received calls from Netscape’s legal and marketing departments. After he finished talking, I asked to speak with them (a man and a woman, possibly Mitchell Baker) to tell them the need for a new term. They immediately agreed in principle, but we didn’t reach an agreement on the specific term.
Throughout the week’s meetings, I remained focused on coming up with a better name and proposed the term “open source software”. Although not ideal, I thought it was good enough. I found at least four people to solicit opinions: Eric Drexler, Mark Miller, and Todd Anderson all liked it, while a friend in marketing PR felt that the term “open” was overused and that we could find a better one. In theory he was right, but I couldn’t think of a better one, so I wanted to try to promote it first. In hindsight, I should have directly proposed it to Eric Raymond, but at that time I didn’t know him well, so I took an indirect strategy.
Todd strongly agreed on the need for a new term and offered to help promote it. This was helpful because, as a non-programmer, my influence in the free software community was weak. My work in nanotechnology education was a plus, but not enough to make me very valued on free software issues. As a Linux programmer, Todd’s words were more likely to be listened to.
The Crucial Meeting
Later that week, on February 5, 1998, a group brainstormed at VA Research. In addition to Eric Raymond, Todd, and me, Larry Augustin, Sam Ockman, and Jon Hall (“maddog”) participated by phone.
The main topic of the meeting was promotion strategy, especially which companies to contact. I said very little, but kept looking for opportunities to introduce the proposed term. I felt it would be useless for me to directly say, “You technicians should start using my new term.” Most of the attendees didn’t know me, and for all I knew, they might not even agree that there was an urgent need for a new term now.
Fortunately, Todd was paying attention. Instead of advocating which specific term the community should use, he indirectly did something in the face of these stubborn people. He just used the term in other topics — put it into the conversation to see what would happen. I was nervous, expecting a response, but at first there was nothing. The discussion continued on the original topic. It seemed only he and I noticed the use of the term.
Not only that — meme evolution (LCTT note: human academic term) was at work. A few minutes later, another person used the term, apparently not noticing, while continuing the topic discussion. Todd and I glanced at each other out of the corner of our eyes: yes, we both noticed what was happening. I was excited — it might work! But I kept quiet: I still had low status in the group. Some people might even wonder why Eric invited me.
Towards the end of the meeting, probably Todd or Eric, explicitly raised the terminology issue. Maddog mentioned an early term “freely distributable” and a new term “cooperatively developed”. Eric listed “free software”, “open source software”, and “software source” as the main options. Todd proposed using “open source”, and Eric supported him. I didn’t say much, letting Todd and Eric (easily and informally) reach a consensus on the name “open source”. Obviously for most attendees, changing the name was not the most important topic discussed here; it was just a secondary related topic. From my meeting notes, only about 10% of the content was about terminology.
But I was happy. There were many key leaders of the community there, and they liked the new name, or at least didn’t oppose it. This was a good sign. I might not be able to help much; Eric Raymond was better suited to promote the new name, and he did. Bruce Perens immediately expressed support, helped establish Opensource.org and played an important role in promoting the new term.
To gain recognition for this name, Tim O’Reilly agreed to actively use it in multiple projects representing the community, which was necessary and even very worthwhile. And the term was also used in the official upcoming release of Netscape Navigator code. By the end of February, O’Reilly & Associates and Netscape had begun using the new term.
Name Promotion
For some time after that, the term was promoted to the media by Eric Raymond, to business by Tim O’Reilly, and to the programming community by both, and it seemed to spread quite quickly.
On April 17, 1998, Tim O’Reilly convened a summit of some important leaders in the field, announced as the first “Free Software Summit”, and after April 14, it was called the first “Open Source Summit”.
Those months were quite exciting for open source. It seemed that every week a new company announced its participation in the plan. Reading Slashdot (LCTT note: technology news website) had become a necessary operation, even for those like me who could only participate peripherally. I firmly believed that the new term could be very helpful for quickly spreading to business and being widely used by the public.
Although a Google search shows that “open source” appears more than “free software”, the latter is still widely used, and we should be inclusive when communicating with people who prefer it.
Happy Feeling
When Eric Raymond’s early statement about the terminology change was posted on the Open Source Initiative</rt> website, I was listed on the VA brainstorming meeting list, but not as the founder of the term. This was my own mistake, I didn’t tell Eric the details. I thought just let it go, I’d stay behind the scenes, but Todd didn’t think so. He thought I would one day be happy to be called the creator of the term “open source software”. He explained the situation to Eric, and Eric updated the website in time.
Coming up with this phrase was just a small contribution, but I am grateful to those who credit it to me. Every time I hear it (now often), it gives me a little touch.
The huge credit for convincing the community goes to Eric Raymond and Tim O’Reilly, who made it all possible. Thank them for crediting me, and thank Todd Anderson for everything he did. The above is not a complete history of the term open source, let me apologize to many key people not mentioned. Those seeking a more complete account should refer to this article and links elsewhere on the web.
About the Author
Christine Peterson writes, gives lectures, and introduces powerful future technologies to the media, especially in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and longevity. She is a co-founder and former president of the Foresight Institute, a nanotechnology public welfare organization. The Foresight Institute provides education on powerful future technologies and tells how they guide their long-term impact to the public, technical community, and policy makers. She serves on the Machine Intelligence advisory committee… More about Christine Peterson
