[PeterisP]

My memory of that period (mid-90s-299ish) is that in a majority of cases the widely used 'public domain' software was distributed without restrictions but also without source code, and thus did not really enable modification and redistribution of improved versions even if the licence (or lack of it) didn't prohibit me to do so; so back then the 'ideologically free' movement towards open source software did result in an actual increase of practical freedoms.

[jslabovitz]

Ah, I did not explain clearly. My mistake. I wasn't talking about binary-only shareware distribution, but rather source code (primarily Unix/C-based on comp.sources.*). I'm thinking about the Usenet software itself (B News, C News, rn, tin, vnews), sendmail/bind, early Pine/Mutt/procmail (?), scripting languages like Perl/Python/Ruby, and so on. And a pile of early microcomputer code for Z80/8080/6500/6800/etc.