In April 2002, Grady Booch sent out an email with the subject “Preserving classic software products” to “about 500 contributors to the theory and/or practice of software”[*] [Booch 2002a] His appeal to provide top 10 lists and to suggest where to look for the source code received an enthusiastic response, eliciting some 153 titles, each receiving as many as 16 votes (FORTRAN). [Booch 2002b] This led to discussions between Booch and the Computer History Museum. A meeting with Booch at the Museum in September 2002 explored issues of creating a software archive; it was concluded that this was something the Museum should do. [Courtney 2002]
To further develop the concepts, a workshop was held on October 16-17, 2003. [Cantrell2003] The sessions included presentations and discussion periods. [Cicalese 2003] Len Shustek, founder and then-Chairman of the Museum, discussed what to collect to provide context around actual software. [Shustek 2003a]. Bernard Peuto, Trustee, announced the creation of the Software Collection Committee, to work alongside existing committees for Hardware Acquisition, CyberCollection/Hardware Collection, and Software Exhibit. [Peuto 2003a]
Shortly after the workshop, Peuto sent out invitations to join the Software Collection Committee, which first met on 19 November 2003. [Peuto 2003b] See the Meetings section of this web site for more information.
[*] Booch later explained the list consisted of “every ACM Fellow, ACM Turing Award, and every IEEE Fellow (in the software space) whose email I could find.”