The GNU Project is announced (1983)

GNU is an operating system started by Richard Stallman as part of the Free Software Movement. It aimed to be a Unix-compatible operating system that was created using entirely free and open-source software.

The name is a recursive acronym that stands for “GNU’s Not Unix!” which is meant to emphasize that it is technically compatible with Unix but has an entirely different motive, as it allows any user to inspect the source code, meaning anyone can study, modify, or redistribute the software.

Richard Stallman believed that users should be able to have full control over the software they use and was against the proprietary model that restricted users from accessing and sharing source code.

The Linux Kernel is released (1991)

The Linux kernel is a main component of the GNU/Linux operating system started by Linus Torvalds. It was started as a hobby project, however it evolved into an essential component that manages the CPU, memory, and other components of the computer. It was made freely available, and it later adopted the GNU Public License, which is a software license that guarantees users are able to run, study, share, and modify the software.

The Linux Kernel was the missing piece to the GNU project; the GNU project had all the tools and libraries, but it lacked a kernel. A kernel is the component of an operating system that acts as a bridge between the software and hardware. An operating system is unable to be used without a kernel. Linux fixed this issue, allowing GNU to communicate with the hardware, finally creating a complete and usable operating system.

Apache HTTP Server is released (1995)

The Apache HTTP Server is an-open source web server software. The project was started by system administrators who needed to fix the abandoned NCSA HTTPd server.

It quickly became one of the first open-source projects to become widely used, and it powered most of the internet after only a few years. It was a proof of concept that the collaborative and open development model could produce a much more reliable system than a proprietary model ever could.

Netscape open sources its Communicator code (1998)

Communicator by Netscape was an internet suite, or a bundle of tools for users to browse the web. It included a web browser, email, newsgroups and more.

Netscape was losing the “Browser War” to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and in hopes of reviving the company, they decided to give away their code. The goal was to allow programmers from all around the world to fix bugs and add features much better than Microsoft could. This led to the Mozilla Project which aimed to rebuild the entire software with help from the community, which eventually led to the creation of the wildly successful Firefox browser.

The OSI is founded (1998)

The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) is an organization created to promote and protect open-source software. Its function was to maintain the Open-Source Definition (OSD) which was a criteria that licenses had to meet in order to receive the official “OSI Certified” mark.

The founders believed that the term “free software” was confusing because people tended to associate “free” with the possibility of lack of support or unreliability. The OSI set a true definition to the term “open-source” for corporations. It made open-source software seem more like a reliable standard instead of a niche movement.

Wikipedia is launched (2001)

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It was powered entirely by free, open-source software. Its purpose was to build a huge encyclopedia by allowing anyone to edit any page easily. It was another example that an open collaboration model could create successful, high-quality, and reliable sources of information.

Linus Torvalds creates Git (2005)

Git was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 to be a solution to the problem of version control. Version control is a system that tracks and manages changes to files over time, essentially keeping a history of all the changes made to the project. Having this is necessary to keeping organization during development as it makes it easy for developers to roll back to a more previous version of the software in case something breaks.

There were other version control systems before Git, but Linus wanted to focus on speed and reliability on his version.

Android is released (2008)

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google. It is open-source and built on the Linux kernel. The purpose of Android’s creation was to create a mobile operating system that was a completely open-source and free alternative to Apple’s proprietary iOS.

As a result of the OS being completely open-source, hundreds of companies adopted it and made their own modifications to it, leading to a lot of diversity in the smartphone market.

It even became widely used in devices besides smartphones. Nowadays, many other devices like smartwatches, thermostats, washers/dryers, VR headsets, and others might run on a heavily modified version of Android changed to fit the needs of what it's running on.

Docker is released (2013)

Docker is an open-source platform created by Solomon Hykes that condenses all of the various files that make up an application in a package known as a “container,” making it extremely easy to transfer an application and all of its dependencies quickly.

Solomon started working on Docker as an internal project at dotCloud before becoming open-source. His goal was to solve the problem of inconsistency between development and testing as well as between different hardware.

TensorFlow becomes open source (2015)

TensorFlow is an open-source framework for building and training Machine Learning (ML) models created by Google. By making the framework open-source, Google intended to make ML research go much faster. This also allowed any individual or team to create their own AI models without needing proprietary tools.

The popularity of TensorFlow also led to the creation and sharing of pre-trained Ai models used for more specific purposes. Many large companies also took notice to TensorFlow. As companies across practically every industry began to adopt TensorFlow, it very quickly became one of the most widely used frameworks for training ML models out there.