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The degree to which this is so pervasive and standard--so much so that Github renders your README by default--is kind of an artifact of the open source movement
by partdavid 2y ago
The degree to which this is so pervasive and standard--so much so that Github renders your README by default--is kind of an artifact of the open source movement. Which also brought a lot of similar standardized files, as the need came up (LICENSE, COPYING, INSTALL, CONTRIBUTING, etc.).
During the sharing, hacking, free software period it was a lot less standard and I saw plenty of alternate casing for README and "non-standard" spellings like 00README, Readme_first, etc. When everyone started sharing their open source projects in a standard way (Github and its ilk, along with the rise of CTAN/CPAN-like registries for all kind software) the notion of the standard README got a lot more... standard.