This page lists the first release dates and anniversary dates of widely used free and open source software projects — GNU/Linux distributions, desktop environments, databases, browsers, and tools. Use it as a quick reference to find out when your favourite open source project was born.

Dates are sourced from official project histories and verified release records. The Anniversary Date column shows the calendar date used to mark the project's birthday each year. The First Release Date column shows the full date of the first public release or the officially recognised project birthday. The table is sorted by anniversary date. See also our desktop environment reference pages and the open source distribution index for more background on individual projects.

Open Source Software — First Release Dates

#	Software / Distribution	Anniversary Date	First Release Date	Brief History
1	Blender	2nd January	1994-01-02	Blender is a powerful open source 3D creation suite used for animated films, visual effects, and games. It was created by Ton Roosendaal at Dutch studio NeoGeo; January 2, 1994 is its official birthday based on the earliest source file timestamps. It became free and open source software in October 2002 following a community fundraiser.
2	OpenWrt	15th January	2004-01-15	OpenWrt is a Linux-based OS for embedded devices, primarily used on home and enterprise routers. It replaces the vendor firmware with a fully writable file system and package manager, giving users control over their hardware.
3	MediaWiki	25th January	2002-01-25	MediaWiki is the wiki software that powers Wikipedia and thousands of other wikis. It was written by Magnus Manske and first deployed on the English Wikipedia on January 25, 2002. The name "MediaWiki" was adopted in August 2003. Development is now coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation.
4	LibreOffice	25th January	2011-01-25	LibreOffice is a free office suite forked from OpenOffice.org by The Document Foundation. Its first release appeared on January 25, 2011. It supports open document formats and is the default office suite in many Linux distributions.
5	VLC media player	1st February	2001-02-01	VLC is a free, open source media player and streaming server developed by VideoLAN. It plays most audio and video formats without requiring additional codecs. VLC was originally a student project at Ecole Centrale Paris and was released as open source in February 2001.
6	Python	20th February	1991-02-20	Python is a widely used general-purpose programming language created by Guido van Rossum. Version 0.9.0 was released on February 20, 1991. Python emphasises readable code and has become the language of choice for data science, machine learning, and scripting.
7	ReactOS	24th February	1998-02-24	ReactOS is an open source operating system designed to be binary-compatible with Windows applications and drivers. The project started in February 1998 with the goal of providing a free alternative to Windows.
8	GNOME	3rd March	1999-03-03	GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a widely used desktop environment for Linux and Unix-like systems. It was founded in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena as a fully free alternative to KDE. GNOME 1.0 was released on March 3, 1999 at the LinuxWorld Conference in San Jose, California. It is now maintained by the GNOME Foundation and ships as the default desktop in Fedora, Ubuntu, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
9	Ansible	4th March	2012-03-04	Ansible is an open source IT automation platform. It uses an agentless, SSH-based architecture and plain YAML playbooks, making it straightforward to deploy and manage infrastructure. Red Hat acquired Ansible in 2015.
10	Arch Linux	11th March	2002-03-11	Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution aimed at experienced users who prefer a minimal, custom-built system. It follows a "keep it simple" philosophy and is maintained through a community-driven package manager called Pacman.
11	Kali Linux	13th March	2013-03-13	Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution built for penetration testing and security auditing. It is developed and maintained by Offensive Security and ships with hundreds of security tools pre-installed.
12	Docker	20th March	2013-03-20	Docker is an open source platform for building, shipping, and running applications inside software containers. It standardises how applications are packaged and deployed across different environments.
13	SUSE Linux	29th March	1994-03-29	SUSE Linux is one of the oldest commercial Linux distributions, originally released in Germany in 1994. It is known for its enterprise support and the YaST system configuration tool. SUSE later spawned the community-driven openSUSE project.
14	Xfce	30th March	1996-03-30	Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems. It is designed to be fast and low on system resources while remaining visually appealing. Xfce uses GTK as its toolkit.
15	elementary OS	31st March	2011-03-31	elementary OS is a Linux distribution focused on design and ease of use. It ships with the Pantheon desktop environment and targets users who want a clean, polished interface. It is built on an Ubuntu LTS base.
16	Git	7th April	2005-04-07	Git is a distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds to manage Linux kernel development. The first release appeared on April 7, 2005. Git is now the dominant version control system in the software industry and underpins platforms such as GitHub and GitLab.
17	NetBSD	20th April	1993-04-20	NetBSD is a Unix-like operating system known for its portability across a wide range of hardware platforms, from embedded systems to enterprise servers. The NetBSD Foundation maintains the project under a BSD licence.
18	MySQL	23rd May	1995-05-23	MySQL is one of the world's most widely used open source relational databases. It was created by Michael Widenius and David Axmark and first released in May 1995. Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB in 2008; Oracle later acquired Sun in 2010. MySQL remains widely deployed in LAMP stacks worldwide.
19	Zorin OS	1st July	2009-07-01	Zorin OS is a Linux distribution designed to ease the transition from Windows and macOS. It provides a familiar desktop layout and ships with a range of pre-installed software to reduce setup time for new Linux users.
20	Wine	4th July	1993-07-04	Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems without a Windows licence. Development started in 1993 and the project is co-ordinated by the WineHQ community.
21	PostgreSQL	8th July	1996-07-08	PostgreSQL is a powerful open source object-relational database system with more than 35 years of active development. It supports ACID transactions, JSON, full-text search, and a rich extension ecosystem. Version 1.0 was released in July 1996.
22	KDE	12th July	1998-07-12	KDE is a free software community that develops the KDE Plasma desktop environment and a wide range of applications. The project was announced on October 14, 1996 by Matthias Ettrich. KDE 1.0 — the first stable release — arrived on July 12, 1998. The anniversary is traditionally marked on October 14 (the original announcement date), though July 12 is the date of the first stable release.
23	Slackware	16th July	1993-07-16	Slackware, created by Patrick Volkerding, is one of the oldest surviving Linux distributions. It was first released on July 16, 1993 and is known for its simplicity, stability, and close adherence to Unix conventions.
24	Gentoo Linux	26th July	2000-07-26	Gentoo Linux is a source-based distribution that compiles packages from source using the Portage package manager. Users can tune compilation flags for their hardware, giving fine-grained control over performance and features. It was created by Daniel Robbins.
25	QEMU	15th August	2003-08-15	QEMU is an open source machine emulator and virtualiser. It can emulate a wide range of CPU architectures and is used as the backbone of many virtualisation stacks, including KVM on Linux. Fabrice Bellard created QEMU in 2003.
26	Haiku	18th August	2001-08-18	Haiku is an open source operating system inspired by BeOS, with a focus on personal computing and multimedia performance. Development as "OpenBeOS" started in August 2001; the project was renamed Haiku in 2004. Haiku R1 Beta 1 arrived in 2018.
27	Linux kernel	25th August	1991-08-25	On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds posted a message to the comp.os.minix newsgroup announcing a "free operating system (just a hobby)" he was developing. The first public release, version 0.01, followed in September 1991. The Linux kernel is now the most widely deployed operating system kernel in the world.
28	FreeDOS	3rd September	1994-09-03	FreeDOS is an open source, MS-DOS-compatible operating system started by Jim Hall in 1994. It is used to run legacy software, flash BIOS firmware, and as a lightweight environment for embedded systems.
29	Debian	15th September	1993-09-15	Debian is one of the oldest and most influential Linux distributions. Ian Murdock announced the project on August 16, 1993; the first release (0.01) appeared on September 15, 1993. Debian is the upstream base for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Kali Linux, and hundreds of other distributions.
30	Firefox	23rd September	2002-09-23	Firefox's first public release — named Phoenix 0.1 — appeared on September 23, 2002. The browser was later renamed Firebird, then Firefox. Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. It is developed by the Mozilla Foundation and is known for its focus on privacy and open web standards.
31	GNU Project	27th September	1983-09-27	Richard Stallman announced the GNU Project on September 27, 1983, with the goal of creating a fully free Unix-like operating system. GNU tools — including GCC, Bash, and GNU Coreutils — form the userland of most Linux-based systems today.
32	Nginx	4th October	2004-10-04	Nginx is a high-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer. Igor Sysoev began development in 2002 and released Nginx publicly on October 4, 2004. It is one of the most widely deployed web servers on the internet.
33	OpenOffice.org	13th October	2000-10-13	OpenOffice.org was an open source office suite derived from StarOffice, which Sun Microsystems acquired in 1999. Sun announced the project on July 19, 2000, and the source code went live on October 13, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0 was released on May 1, 2002. It was later donated to the Apache Software Foundation (Apache OpenOffice) and also forked as LibreOffice.
34	Lubuntu	13th October	2011-10-13	Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution that uses the LXQt desktop environment. It is designed for older hardware with limited resources and ships as an official Ubuntu flavour.
35	OpenBSD	18th October	1996-10-18	OpenBSD is a Unix-like operating system forked from NetBSD by Theo de Raadt in 1995. Version 2.0 — the first release under the OpenBSD name — appeared on October 18, 1996. It is known for its strong security defaults and proactive auditing of the codebase.
36	Ubuntu	20th October	2004-10-20	Ubuntu is a popular Debian-based Linux distribution developed by Canonical. Its first release (4.10, "Warty Warthog") appeared on October 20, 2004. Ubuntu is widely used on desktops, servers, and cloud infrastructure, and serves as the base for many derivative distributions.
37	Void Linux	20th October	2008-10-20	Void Linux is an independent, rolling release distribution that uses the XBPS package manager and runit init system. It is one of the few mainstream distributions that does not use systemd.
38	PCLinuxOS	24th October	2003-10-24	PCLinuxOS is a rolling release Linux distribution derived from Mandriva (formerly Mandrake). It is known for being easy to set up and use out of the box, particularly for desktop users transitioning from Windows.
39	MariaDB	29th October	2009-10-29	MariaDB is a community-developed fork of MySQL, created in 2009 by MySQL founder Monty Widenius after Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems. It is a drop-in replacement for MySQL and is the default database in many Linux distributions.
40	FreeBSD	1st November	1993-11-01	FreeBSD is a Unix-like operating system derived from the BSD Unix research releases at the University of California, Berkeley. Version 1.0 was released on November 1, 1993. It is known for its advanced networking stack, ZFS support, and jails virtualisation.
41	Vim	2nd November	1991-11-02	Vim (Vi IMproved) is a highly configurable text editor built for efficient text editing. Bram Moolenaar released version 1.14 on November 2, 1991. It extends the classic vi editor with scripting, plugins, and syntax highlighting. Vim remains popular among developers and system administrators.
42	Inkscape	2nd November	2003-11-02	Inkscape is a free, open source vector graphics editor that uses SVG as its native file format. It started as a fork of Sodipodi in 2003 and has grown into a professional-grade illustration tool used by designers worldwide.
43	Red Hat Linux	3rd November	1994-11-03	Red Hat Linux was one of the most influential early Linux distributions. It introduced the RPM package format and formed the basis for what became Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the community-supported Fedora project.
44	Fedora	6th November	2003-11-06	Fedora is a community-driven Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat. It ships with cutting-edge software and acts as the upstream testing ground for RHEL. Fedora Core 1, the first release, appeared on November 6, 2003.
45	MPlayer	11th November	2000-11-11	MPlayer is a free and open source media player that supports a wide range of audio and video formats. It can be used as a command-line tool or with graphical front-ends such as SMPlayer. Development began in Hungary in 2000.
46	GIMP	21st November	1995-11-21	GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free, open source raster graphics editor. Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis released the first public version in November 1995 at the University of California, Berkeley. GIMP is used for photo retouching, image composition, and graphic design.
47	Apache HTTP Server	1st December	1995-12-01	The Apache HTTP Server is a free and open source web server maintained by the Apache Software Foundation. It traces its roots to the NCSA HTTPd server and was first released in December 1995. For many years it was the most widely used web server on the internet.
48	Perl	18th December	1987-12-18	Perl is a high-level programming language created by Larry Wall. Version 1.000 was released on December 18, 1987. Perl was widely used for system administration, web development (CGI), and text processing, and remains active today under the stewardship of The Perl Foundation.

Notes: KDE's anniversary is traditionally celebrated on October 14 (the 1996 announcement date); July 12 is the date of the first stable KDE 1.0 release in 1998. Blender's first release date (1994-01-02) reflects the earliest source file timestamp recognised as Blender's official birthday; the software became publicly available as freeware on January 1, 1998. OpenOffice.org's anniversary date reflects the source code release date (October 13, 2000) rather than the announcement date. Firefox's date (2002-09-23) marks the release of Phoenix 0.1, the first public version of the project that would be renamed Firefox.

Did we miss an important project? Leave a comment below and we will review it for inclusion.