4 ms·

I was thinking the other day, before 2004, did we ever say "ecosystem" to refer to a bunch of software packages in a particular domain? I have a feeling that th

by jordigh 12y ago

I was thinking the other day, before 2004, did we ever say "ecosystem" to refer to a bunch of software packages in a particular domain? I have a feeling that this book is what convinced us all to refer to our software collections as an ecosystem, and we have forgotten that it was this book's idea: http://www.amazon.ca/Software-Ecosystem-Understanding-Indispensable-Technology/dp/0262633310 http://www.amazon.ca/Software-Ecosystem-Understanding-Indisp... The word is ubiquitous now, but if you think about it, it's a bit of a funny way to refer to software, with allusions to predators, prey, producers, consumers, and population dynamics.

johnmyleswhite 12y ago
Looks like the growth curve starts before then: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=software+ecosystem&year_start=1990&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csoftware%20ecosystem%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=software+ecosy...
- jordigh 12y ago
  Interesting, although the smoothing can be a bit misleading. As I expected, "open source" does not exist before 1998, when Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, et al coined the term: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&ca... However, with data smoothing, it makes it appear is if the term existed before 1998: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&ca...
glomph 12y ago
The metaphor is widely used in lots of other areas though. Education, Science, Research, Business and so on.

by jordigh 12y ago

johnmyleswhite 12y ago

Looks like the growth curve starts before then: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=software+ecosystem&year_start=1990&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csoftware%20ecosystem%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=software+ecosy...

jordigh 12y ago
Interesting, although the smoothing can be a bit misleading. As I expected, "open source" does not exist before 1998, when Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, et al coined the term: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&ca... However, with data smoothing, it makes it appear is if the term existed before 1998: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source&ca...

glomph 12y ago

The metaphor is widely used in lots of other areas though. Education, Science, Research, Business and so on.