On Sat, Jun 11, 2016 at 8:47 AM, Bradley Stone <bvstone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
2005? First open source. :)
Here's a blast from the past (2001).
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc/q5oonqKyuzM/rqxAE05baekJ
To be fair, the article did specifically mention that Apache (the
famous open-source Web server) was already on the i in 2001.
If we're just talking about freely available RPG source for various
utilities and such, then Craig Rutledge's stuff certainly counts, and
he's been at it for who knows how long. His site claims to be dated
"1984-2016". I can't be sure you can make the case that his "open
source" stuff started in 1984 (back before the Web, though I guess
freely distributed over BBS may count?), but no doubt there are some
programs on there that originated quite far back, and I would imagine
he was a relative early adopter of the GPL licensing terms.
And of course there may have been other folks freely sharing RPG code
via whatever means were available.
As for larger projects, like whole programming languages, Per
Gummedal's iSeriesPython project started (probably in unpublished
form) around 2001. At least, I know I have some source code for his
Python 2.3.3 that is dated 2001, though the bulk of it was dated 2002
and 2003. It was a big project. I think 2.3.3 was probably available
in finished form by sometime in 2003. Some "chatter" among old-time
users of iSeriesPython hint that there were experimental-but-working
versions before 2.3.3. Aaron Fransen built the iSeriesPython Web site
by no later than March 2004 (because that's when the message board
started).
Gummedal's achievement is impressive indeed when you consider he
ported the language and most of its standard library to the *native*
(NOT PASE!) side of the midrange platform, using ILE C.
John Y.
midrange.com
