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How the term open source was created, running FreeBSD on ThinkPad T530, Moving away from Windows, Unknown Giants, as well as OpenBSD and FreeDOS.

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How I coined the term 'open source'

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.

It has never been published, until today.

The introduction of the term "open source software" was a deliberate effort to make this field of endeavor more understandable to newcomers and to business, which was viewed as necessary to its spread to a broader community of users. The problem with the main earlier label, "free software," was not its political connotations, but that—to newcomers—its seeming focus on price is distracting. A term was needed that focuses on the key issue of source code and that does not immediately confuse those new to the concept. The first term that came along at the right time and fulfilled these requirements was rapidly adopted: open source.

This term had long been used in an "intelligence" (i.e., spying) context, but to my knowledge, use of the term with respect to software prior to 1998 has not been confirmed. The account below describes how the term open source software caught on and became the name of both an industry and a movement.

• Meetings on computer security

In late 1997, weekly meetings were being held at Foresight Institute to discuss computer security. Foresight is a nonprofit think tank focused on nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, and software security is regarded as central to the reliability and security of both. We had identified free software as a promising approach to improving software security and reliability and were looking for ways to promote it. Interest in free software was starting to grow outside the programming community, and it was increasingly clear that an opportunity was coming to change the world. However, just how to do this was unclear, and we were groping for strategies.

At these meetings, we discussed the need for a new term due to the confusion factor. The argument was as follows: those new to the term "free software" assume it is referring to the price. Oldtimers must then launch into an explanation, usually given as follows: "We mean free as in freedom, not free as in beer." At this point, a discussion on software has turned into one about the price of an alcoholic beverage. The problem was not that explaining the meaning is impossible—the problem was that the name for an important idea should not be so confusing to newcomers. A clearer term was needed.