> The BRL-CAD source code repository is the oldest known public version-controlled codebase in the world that's still under active development, dating back to 1983-12-16 00:10:31 UTC.
Another fun fact, BRL-CAD was started by Mike Muuss, author of the 'ping' networking tool. Brilliant computer scientist. Also, while it's evolved, the codebase predates nearly everything .. ansi c, c++, tcp/ip, opengl, version control, .. actively developed and funded since 1979.
Haha, yes, that is technically correct, and the best kind. I probably should have qualified with an ambiguous "modern version control" or simply said it predates "RCS" (1982).
There's actually some indications BRL-CAD started in SCCS back around 1980, but any evidence of that is likely on old 10.5" magnetic data reel tapes that can't be read easily. So instead BRL-CAD's documented commit history spans from RCS import to CVS to SVN to Git.
BRL-CAD was open-sourced in 2004. MIT Scheme was released as free software in 1986 after being started somewhere near 1979 (which was about the time I started programming in Basic, using the TRS-80 and Apple II). The initial revision of the MIT git repo is dated December 1986--I think it started in RCS. The original license was some variation of the MIT one, which requested that changes be sent back to the team if at all possible, with a request to tell them what the use was. They changed to the GPL around release 7 or 8.
My first language was FORTRAN 66, learned from a book in the library, but on paper only as I had no access to a computer until a couple years later in 1979.
The BRL of BRL-CAD is the Ballistic Research Laboratory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Research_Laboratory
which developed, along with the Penn, the first general-purpose digital computer ENIAC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC