Long before the term <quote>Open Source</quote> was used, software was developed by loose associations of programmers and freely exchanged. Starting in the early 1950's, organizations such as <link xlink:href="http://www.share.org">SHARE</link> and <link xlink:href="http://www.decus.org">DECUS</link> developed much of the software that computer hardware companies bundled with their hardware offerings. At that time computer companies were in the hardware business; anything that reduced software cost and made more programs available made the hardware companies more competitive.