No one was providing CVS hosting (that I know of) back in May 1999 when I dreamed up Freepository. I was consulting on yet another Build & Release Management System in Worchester, MA USA at that time.

Worchester had limited lodging options, so I opted to stay at a Bed & Breakfast in nearby Auburn. For my non-US readers, a Bed & Breakfast is a small family-run boarding house that provides a next-morning breakfast with each night’s lodging fee.

It was a late spring night, cool but not cold, on Wednesday 12-May-1999.I was having trouble falling asleep, though. Not because of the weather, nor because of my room (I was staying in a third-floor private room of an historic farmhouse dating to 1781). No, I was having trouble sleeping because my mind was racing.

I kept thinking about some of the remote source code access problems I was facing with this client, and how similar they were to problems I had faced with other clients. I tossed and turned in my bed until finally I awoke with quite a start, sat upright in bed and almost shouted ”Freepository”.

That’s how, where, when and why I conceived Freepository. Within three weeks, I had a crude early verison of the service functioning. By October 1999, Freepository’s earliest members had registered.

Freepository now hosts tens of thousands of members in 42 countries, with our members saying things ‘Freepository has changed my life’ and ‘Freepository is vital to us’. Wow.

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