The Most Important Software Innovations
This title could be clearer and more informative.Try out Clickbait Shieldfor free (5 uses left this month).
A comprehensive historical survey of the most important software innovations from 1837 to the 1970s, carefully distinguishing between hardware advances, product releases, and genuine software innovations. The list covers foundational concepts like stored programs, subroutines, compilers, garbage collection, object-oriented programming, packet-switching, TCP/IP, relational databases, GUIs, and more. The author defines strict criteria: innovations must be widely used, technologically novel ideas (not mere re-implementations or hardware), and critically important. Notable exclusions include hardware milestones, popular products that were simply re-implementations, and social/legal inventions like open source licensing. The paper also examines the relationship between software patents and innovation incentives.
Table of contents
The Most Important Software InnovationsIntroductionCriteriaSourcesThe Most Important Software InnovationsSoftware PatentsWhat’s Not an Important Software Innovation?ConclusionsAppendix: Software Innovations Being ConsideredSort: