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Christine Peterson: How I Coined the Term 'Open Source'

posted by janrinok on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the well,-now-you-know dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Christine Peterson finally publishes her account of the day that the term "open source software" was coined, 20 years ago.

In a few days, on February 3, the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the term "open source software" is upon us. As open source software grows in popularity and powers some of the most robust and important innovations of our time, we reflect on its rise to prominence.

I am the originator of the term "open source software" and came up with it while executive director at Foresight Institute. Not a software developer like the rest, I thank Linux programmer Todd Anderson for supporting the term and proposing it to the group.

This is my account of how I came up with it, how it was proposed, and the subsequent reactions. Of course, there are a number of accounts of the coining of the term, for example by Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman, yet this is mine, written on January 2, 2006.

The article is not going to change the world, but it is an interesting piece of history that many in our community will find interesting.

Source: https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:53PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:53PM (#631685)

    Maybe I learned my lesson and never contributed to free software ever again.

    This is what happens when you ignore enthusiastic volunteers who are willing to contribute to your movement. They don't stay enthusiastic for long. They soon realize your movement is an exclusive shitshow that exists solely for the the purpose of inflating the fucking egos of your tight-knit club.

    Fuck free software to fucking hell for all eternity.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:21PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:21PM (#631699)

    We love you, AC! It gets better! Once you get over your own egoism that makes you think that everyone else is an egoist, it gets better.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:40PM (4 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:40PM (#631712) Journal

      Reading AC comments makes you wonder, if it's just one person arguing with themselves.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @11:54AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday February 02 2018, @11:54AM (#631954) Journal
    A lot of LLVM developers have had similar experiences to yours, but the lesson that they learned was 'GCC has a horribly dysfunctional community' (it's improved a lot in the last few years, but it used to be really toxic) not 'don't contribute to free software'. Open source communities are just like any others: some are inviting and friendly, some are hostile and closed. My experience is that projects with permissive licenses tend to have more open communities (though I've seen extreme exceptions in both directions, including some very welcoming GNU projects) and sometimes you just find yourself talking to someone who's had a run of bad news recently and is unusually cranky.
    --
    sudo mod me up