Power to the People From the dawn of the semiconductor until the late 1980s it was commonplace for software to be completely open source.
When you purchased a device, not only did you have the best Bakelite clad hardware, but also complete access to the code that made it run, allowing you to fine tune the product to its intended purpose.
As computers became smaller and found their way into more walks of life, software became big business. As the value of the industry exploded so too did the rise of a curtain of code secrecy. Much of the source code that many designers and engineers were used to seeing found itself behind costly paywalls or held onto by device manufacturers.