Tim O'Reilly

And I tried to tell a story about that. And then, of course, everybody went, oh, now we understand. The principles of this new era are collective intelligence, big data, what I called at the time, we now call it cloud computing. I called it software above the level of a single device. When I wrote that, what is Web 2.0 paper, it just catalyzed the industry.

And I tried to tell a story about that. And then, of course, everybody went, oh, now we understand. The principles of this new era are collective intelligence, big data, what I called at the time, we now call it cloud computing. I called it software above the level of a single device. When I wrote that, what is Web 2.0 paper, it just catalyzed the industry.

No, my colleague Dale Doherty, who was one of the first people that I hired at O'Reilly, coined it. I had been writing, and this again goes to this notion of how maps and terms and language emerges. So when I convened in 1998, which is six years earlier, the meeting that came to be called the Open Source Summit, because that's where a group of free software leaders agreed to use this new term.

No, my colleague Dale Doherty, who was one of the first people that I hired at O'Reilly, coined it. I had been writing, and this again goes to this notion of how maps and terms and language emerges. So when I convened in 1998, which is six years earlier, the meeting that came to be called the Open Source Summit, because that's where a group of free software leaders agreed to use this new term.

My first piece was this pattern recognition thing. I'd been concerned about this notion that the free software narrative that was being told by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation was just wrong because I go, wait, wait, how can you be talking about free software and not talk about the World Wide Web, which was put into the public domain?

My first piece was this pattern recognition thing. I'd been concerned about this notion that the free software narrative that was being told by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation was just wrong because I go, wait, wait, how can you be talking about free software and not talk about the World Wide Web, which was put into the public domain?

But anyway, so the point was I told this new story that the internet, not the Free Software Foundation and Linux should be the heart of this story. And it really changed the arc of that narrative. I'd also learned early on this great trick from this guy, Brian Irwin. What he really taught me was advocacy as marketing. Tell a big story.

But anyway, so the point was I told this new story that the internet, not the Free Software Foundation and Linux should be the heart of this story. And it really changed the arc of that narrative. I'd also learned early on this great trick from this guy, Brian Irwin. What he really taught me was advocacy as marketing. Tell a big story.

When we published the book, you know, he said, we're going to go on tour. And he said, but people don't care about the book. They care about the internet. We use the book to market the internet. We didn't try to market the book.

When we published the book, you know, he said, we're going to go on tour. And he said, but people don't care about the book. They care about the internet. We use the book to market the internet. We didn't try to market the book.

So then five years after that, here I am at the open source meeting. And I organized, you know, I got a lot of press attention. contacts through this period of being an advocate for the commercialization of the internet. And so I invite them in and I have a set of people. I go, well, what's the most mission critical program on the internet? And they're scratching their head.

So then five years after that, here I am at the open source meeting. And I organized, you know, I got a lot of press attention. contacts through this period of being an advocate for the commercialization of the internet. And so I invite them in and I have a set of people. I go, well, what's the most mission critical program on the internet? And they're scratching their head.

They've not heard this story before. And I say, I'd memorized the IP address for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and whatever. And I said, yeah, why do you get to call yourself newyorktimes.com instead of whatever their IP address was. And it goes, this guy over here, he wrote and has been maintaining for the last 15 years, this software called the domain name system, right?

They've not heard this story before. And I say, I'd memorized the IP address for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and whatever. And I said, yeah, why do you get to call yourself newyorktimes.com instead of whatever their IP address was. And it goes, this guy over here, he wrote and has been maintaining for the last 15 years, this software called the domain name system, right?

and this program called Bind, the Berkeley Internet Name Demon. Okay, you send email. It's this guy here. He wrote this. I went down the list, and I kind of finally, about number five, I got to the line of store walls, you know, talking about Linux. And I said, you're able to do all these things because of this software that was created and given away by these long-term developers.

and this program called Bind, the Berkeley Internet Name Demon. Okay, you send email. It's this guy here. He wrote this. I went down the list, and I kind of finally, about number five, I got to the line of store walls, you know, talking about Linux. And I said, you're able to do all these things because of this software that was created and given away by these long-term developers.

Yeah. A month later, Linus was on the cover of Forbes. There was a spread of all these guys' full-page photos inside and changed the narrative. But here's the thing. The narrative was still wrong. Most people don't really remember this ancient history, but... Everybody still was focused so much on that open source was about licenses.

Yeah. A month later, Linus was on the cover of Forbes. There was a spread of all these guys' full-page photos inside and changed the narrative. But here's the thing. The narrative was still wrong. Most people don't really remember this ancient history, but... Everybody still was focused so much on that open source was about licenses.

And my pattern recognition sense was like, that's just wrong because I lived the open source story through the early part of my life with Unix, which was basically this community had grown up under the proprietary license from AT&T. And you had Berkeley Unix, the Berkeley version, I was a Berkeley Unix guy more than a Linux guy. And it was this community that was happening.

And my pattern recognition sense was like, that's just wrong because I lived the open source story through the early part of my life with Unix, which was basically this community had grown up under the proprietary license from AT&T. And you had Berkeley Unix, the Berkeley version, I was a Berkeley Unix guy more than a Linux guy. And it was this community that was happening.