I'm seeking your help in preserving classic software products before 

they are forever lost to future generations. As Bjarne Stroustrup, the 

inventor of C++, has observed, "our civilization runs on computers." 

There are a number of organizations - most notably the Computer History Museum - 

dedicated to preserving classic hardware, but it occurs to me (and others) that 

we should also preserve classic software as well. There are a number of reasons 

to act now.  Although many of the authors of such systems are still alive and 

many others may have the source code or design documents for these systems 

collecting dust in their offices or garages, time is our enemy and over time, 

these artifacts will become irretrievable. 



By the way, notice that I said "source code" and "design 

documents." Executables are interesting only insofar as we have the 

machines upon which to run them (and preserving running hardware is an 

entirely different issue), but the code and designs that these executables 

manifest tell us much about the state of the software practice, the minds 

of their inventors, and the technical, social, and economic forces that 

shaped these products in their time. Preserving such artifacts for future 

generations is certainly a valuable historical curiosity, but they also 

offer a statement of prior art (relevant to the issues of proving/disproving 

software patents), the evolution of software architecture (and how they 

were products of their time), and the creation of architectural patterns 

(patterns are common solutions to common problems, and such patterns have 

emerged for particular domains and development cultures). Preserving such 

artifacts also provides the raw materials for future generations of software 

archeologists, historians, and software developers (the latter who can 

learn from the past regarding what worked and what didn't as well as what 

was brilliant and what was an utter failure). What constitutes a classic 

software product? I can only offer the subjective criteria that such a 

product is one that made a seminal technical, economic, or social difference. 

Lisp 1.5, the Mark I Time Sharing System, Smalltalk-72,



Dijkstra's THE operating system, Unix/Linux, and EMACS are all examples 

of technically significant products. DOS, Windows 3.1, VisiCalc, and the 

original Mac OS all had significant economic impact. Space War, Pong, 

Zork, sendmail, IM, and the original Netscape browser all wove themselves 

into the fabric of society.



I'm not affiliated with the Computer Museum, although, from my discussions 

with them, my intent is to initiate this effort but to deliver up all 

such artifacts to them for their preservation and care. I expect to be creative - 

some of you have or may know of people who have dusty card decks, listings, or 

disks that we'd want to scan, capture and otherwise preserve, while certain 

companies may have source code locked up in their vaults as precious intellectual 

property yet who might be open to the suggestion of putting that source code 

into some secure escrow so that 50 or even 100 years from now, at which time 

there would be zero value in that IP, we could open a time capsule of software. 



You are receiving this email because you are an important contributor to the 

theory and/or practice of software. I've emailed about 500 such folks, 

ranging from Turing Award winners to CTOs/CEOs, and researchers. I apologize 

if I've spammed you, but I know of no better way to begin this effort than 

to connect with those people who have helped invent the present and will 

continue to invent the future. 



To draw this message to a close, I'm only asking two things of you. At the 

very least, could you respond to the first? If you are so able, some help 

on the second would be of enormous value. 



First, tell me what's in your top ten list of classic software products. 

What software artifacts would you want to preserve for future generations, 

products that made a difference in shaping the software industry?



Second, please let me know if you have access to any such artifacts or 

if you know of colleagues who do. I'm aware of a few related efforts to keep 

old software running, and if you know of other such activities, please help 

me get in touch with their organizers. I'll happily absorb card decks, 

listings, documents, napkins full of sketches, and the like.



If your company owns the rights to some of these artifacts, let's enter 

into a serious dialog about how we might put those artifacts into secure 

escrow to save them before your company discards them by intention, neglect, 

or merger/economic demise. If you are or know of the original architects 

of these classic software products, let's also talk about capturing an 

oral history of their creation.



Thank you for your time in listening to my ranting. Personally, I'm doing 

this because the software industry has been good to me, and I simply want 

to give back to those who will drive our industry in the future. 


        Grady Booch

        Chief Scientist 

        Rational Software Corporation 

        egb@rational.com