[Ads-l] "Open Source" Not in OED

Mon Dec 4 16:20:32 UTC 2023

That's probably correct. I can find no other uses of "open source" in relation to software before 1998. (I haven't looked too hard, though. They may be out there.) It seems the 1989 use I found is a one-off usage in the sense of published but not necessarily available for license.

Two early uses of "open source" in the current software sense are: 

Eisenberg, Rebecca. “Netscape Decodes.” San Francisco Examiner, 5 April 1998, D-7/2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“Why is Netscape so confident that programmers will in fact improve the software? Given the popularity of other open source products (for example Linux, which Infoworld recently dubbed the Best Software Product of 1997 for technical support), Netscape has good reason to believe that users will have myriad reasons to work on the browser code.”

McComb, Gordon (Copley News Service). “It’s Not All Windows in Linux Land.” Times (Trenton, NJ), 26 July 1998, EM8/2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Torvalds may have been the original designer of Linux, but others have participated in its growth. Linux was released as ‘open source’ code, meaning that every program line of the operating system could be viewed, and modified, by others. Other programmers got into the act, and soon an all-volunteer development team of several thousand contributed to enhancing the basic Linux.”

-----Original Message-----
From: "Amy West" <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
Sent: Monday, December 4, 2023 7:58am
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Open Source" Not in OED

Garson probably can chime in here and speak more intelligibly than I 
can. In conversation with my husband (who is part of the humanitarian 
free and open source software [HFOSS] community) about this the other 
day, he said that the term was preceded by the use of "free software", 
based on Stallman's terminology. He said that there's not only the idea 
of having the code but being able to alter and share the code, which is 
a licensing thang. He said that the use of "open source" is a 
comparatively recent development/shift in terminology. (And note that 
his community uses both "free" and "open" in their labeling.) (And 
you're getting my husband's explanation filtered through my "spousal 
listening" filter.)

---Amy West

On 12/4/23 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2023 08:52:44 -0500
> From:"dave at wilton.net" <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Subject: Re: "Open Source" Not in OED
>
>
> A quick search turned up citations from 1989 in reference to open source
> software, and 1946 for the term in relation to intelligence. There are
> likely earlier cites for the software usage, but 1946 is really early
> for the intelligence sense (except maybe in government documents).
> 
> 
> Andrews, Paul. “Industry’s Soviet Connection Helps Raise the Iron
> Curtain.” Seattle Times, 26 December 1989, E4/1. Readex: America’s
> Historical Newspapers.
>
> “Soviet programmers had gotten their hands on Raima’s program—db-Vista,
> and fast and versatile C language data-base compiler with an open source
> code—the same way lots of software gets passed around: from friends or
> associates in the international PC community.”
>
> (This article also uses the, possibly one-off, term “glasnostware.”)
> 
> 
> “Surprised at Russia?” Oregon Statesman (Salem), 21 February 1946, 4/1.
> ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
>
> “Russia obviously felt this to be true, and adopted underground means to
> complement the information on atomic energy which she must certainly be
> assembling from every open source on which she can possibly lay her
> hands. The fact that she used the technique of espionage, and apparently
> got caught at it, is a serious blow to Russian assurances of
> friendliness, but is only another illustration of the immense importance
> which all governments in 1946 ascribe to being minutely informed.”
> 
> 
> Yerxa, Fendall and Ogden R. Reid. “U.S. Leaves Self Open to Spies
> Seeking Vital Intelligence Data.” Evansville Courier (Indiana), 11
> December 1950, 5/1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
>
> “Internal security experts under the President’s National Security
> Council have met during the past few days in a search for practical
> measures to shut down the “open sources” of vital information that are
> at present available to anyone.
>
> "These so-called "open sources” include government offices, libraries
> and private organizations. Many of them make available to the general
> public such things a geographical layouts of industrits [sic], municipal
> plans, technical and scientific data, patents, operational details of
> transportation systems, engineering plans and similar material which
> might be of great assistance to operatives bent on wide-scale sabotage.”
> 
> 
> Zorza, Victor. “Chines Border Talks Come at Right Time.” Sunday Star
> (Washington, DC), 12 October 1969, G-4/4. Readex: America’s Historical
> Newspapers.
>
> “Of the open source, the most important such information came in the
> journalistic dispatch sent out of Moscow by Victor Louis, whose
> non-journalistic connections were crucial to an understanding of its
> gravity. Of the private sources, the most important indications came
> from diplomatic probing by the Russians, who tried in seemingly casual
> conversations to find out what the western reaction would be in the
> event of hostilities.”

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