It's often difficult to notice when you're in the midst of making history. In the summer and fall of 1999 I spent some time working next door to four noisy, Mountain Dew-swilling misfits working on a renegade project within VA Linux Systems. Little did I know that their efforts would eventually become the world's
largest open source development site.
I refer, of course, to SourceForge.net, which launched on November 17,
1999. The history and beginnings of SourceForge.net can teach executives and managers today the value of trying crazy things that might (and probably will) fail; of letting your young guns run wild with imagination; and not squashing innovation within your company. This post is about SourceForge.net, the site that was before its time and how it came to be.
