Feb 3, 1998 — The Day Software Became "Open"
February 3, 1998
What is “Open Source” anyway?
Imagine you go to a restaurant and fall in love with their secret sauce. In the “Closed Source” world (like Windows or Photoshop), the restaurant keeps the recipe locked in a vault. You can eat the sauce, but you’ll never know how to make it, and you certainly can’t fix it if it’s too salty.
Open Source is the opposite. The recipe is printed right on the bottle. Anyone can:
Read it: See exactly how the sauce is made.
Change it: Add some spice if they think it’s better that way.
Share it: Give the new-and-improved recipe to everyone else for free.
The Secret Meeting in Palo Alto
On February 3, 1998, a small group of tech visionaries gathered in Palo Alto, California. At the time, the world of free software was a bit of a PR mess. People were using terms like “Free Software,” which made business executives nervous. They thought “Free” meant “low quality” or “communist.”
The group—which included legends like Christine Peterson, Todd Anderson, and Eric Raymond—realized they needed a “brand” that sounded professional and inviting to big companies.
The Winner: “Open Source.”
Why This Changed Everything
By focusing on “open as in collaborative” instead of “free as low-quality”, they flipped a switch in the industry. It wasn’t just about being nice anymore; it was about better engineering.
Speed: When thousands of people can see the code, bugs get found and fixed in hours, not months.
Trust: You don’t have to “trust” a big corporation isn’t spying on you; you can check the code yourself.
Innovation: Small creators could build on top of giants without asking for permission.
The Legacy
That Tuesday in 1998 is the reason your smartphone works, why the internet doesn’t crash every five minutes, and why you have access to incredible tools today without paying a cent. Today, almost every major piece of technology—from NASA’s Mars Rovers to the app you’re using right now—runs on the “recipe” shared by the world.
You can take part in the writing of this article. Here is the GitHub repo.