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ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps
Esther Schindler writes "The Airline Control Program (ACP), introduced by IBM around 1967, predated the term 'open source' by decades. But you may be surprised by how much of its development resembles the FOSS movement today. The ITWorld.com article An Abbreviated History of ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Applications describes what made it special."
RMS was angered when a printer manufacturer wouldn't supply the source code to the printer driver, IIRC.
And what most people miss about this story is not just that the manufacturer wouldn't provide the driver. It was that they refused to provide the driver so that rms could modify it so that MIT could use the hardware in the way that they pleased after paying for it.
The device was a shiny new laser printer. rms wanted to add a feature to the driver - notifying someone when (not if) the printer jammed so that print jobs wouldn't get backed up when the printer jammed without having to have someone babysit the printer. The printer maker (I believe it was Xerox, but I could be wrong on this part) didn't want to give up the source because they were afraid that it contained trade secrets because they were the only game in town for laser printing.
The refusal of source code for drivers goes on today, mainly from wireless manufacturers (with the added point that they feel they might be liable if someone violates an FCC reg because they tweaked the driver) and the video card makers.