Tim O'Reilly (born 6 June 1954) is the founder of

O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...

(formerly O'Reilly & Associates). He popularised the terms

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

and

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

Education and early life

Born in

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

, Ireland, Tim O'Reilly moved to San Francisco, California, with his family when he was a baby. He has three brothers and three sisters. As a teenager, encouraged by his older brother Sean, O'Reilly became a follower of George Simon, a writer and adherent of the

general semantics General semantics is concerned with how events translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioral respons ...

program. Through Simon, O'Reilly became acquainted with the work of

Alfred Korzybski Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (, ; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of se ...

, which he has cited as a formative experience. In 1973, O'Reilly enrolled at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

to study

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and graduated ''cum laude'' with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in 1975. During O'Reilly's first year at Harvard, George Simon died in an accident.

Career

After graduating, O'Reilly completed an edition of Simon's ''Notebooks, 1965–1973''. He also wrote a well-received book on the science fiction writer

Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel '' Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked a ...

and edited a collection of Herbert's essays and interviews. O'Reilly got started as a technical writer in 1977. He started publishing computer manuals in 1983, setting up his business in a converted barn in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

, where about a dozen employees worked in a single open room. In 1989, O'Reilly moved his company to

Sebastopol, California Sebastopol ( ) is a city in Sonoma County, in California with a recorded population of 7,521, per the 2020 U.S. Census. Sebastopol was once primarily a plum and apple-growing region. Today, wine grapes are the predominant agriculture crop, a ...

, and published the ''

Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog ''The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'', by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O'Reilly. The ''Los Angeles Times'' notes that the ''Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog'' was the "first popular book about the medium" and "wa ...

'', which was a best-seller in 1992. O'Reilly's business, then known as O'Reilly & Associates, steadily grew through the 1990s, during which period it expanded from paper printed materials to

web publishing A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...

. In 1993, the company's catalogue became an early

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

, the

Global Network Navigator The Global Network Navigator (GNN) was the first commercial web publication and the first web site to offer clickable advertisements. GNN was launched in May 1993, as a project of the technical publishing company O'Reilly Media, then known as O'Re ...

, which in 1995 was sold to

America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

. The company suffered in the

dotcom crash The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

of 2000. As book sales decreased, O'Reilly had to lay off about seventy people, about a quarter of the staff, but thereafter rebuilt the company around

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

publishing and event production. In 2011 O'Reilly handed over the reins of O'Reilly Media to the company's CFO, Laura Baldwin, but retained the title of CEO in recognition for the indispensable role he had in building the O'Reilly Media company and brand. O'Reilly serves on the board of directors of three companies:

Safari Books Online A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an impor ...

, Maker Media, and

PeerJ ''PeerJ'' is an open access peer-reviewed scientific mega journal covering research in the biological and medical sciences. It is published by a company of the same name that was co-founded by CEO Jason Hoyt (formerly at Mendeley) and publisher Pet ...

. He served on the board of

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems ...

until its 2005 merger with

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

, and on the board of

MySQL AB MySQL AB was a Swedish software company founded in 1995. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, Sun was in turn acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as r ...

until its sale to

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

. He also serves on the board of directors for

Code for America Code for America is a non-partisan, non-political 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2009 to address the widening gap between the public and private sectors in their effective use of technology and design. According to its website, the organiza ...

. In February 2012, he joined the

UC Berkeley School of Information The University of California, Berkeley, School of Information, also known as the UC Berkeley School of Information or the I School, is a graduate school and, created in 1994, the newest of the schools at the University of California, Berkele ...

Advisory Board. As a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

ist, O'Reilly has invested in companies such as

Fastly Fastly is an American cloud computing services provider. It describes its network as an edge cloud platform, which is designed to help developers extend their core cloud infrastructure to the edge of the network, closer to users. The Fastly edge ...

Blogger A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

, Delicious,

Foursquare Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * ''4 Square'' (TV series), a Canadian children's s ...

Bitly Bitly is a URL shortening service and a link management platform. The company Bitly, Inc. was established in 2008. It is privately held and based in New York City. Bitly shortens 600 million links per month, for use in social networking, SMS, and ...

, and Chumby. In 2017, O'Reilly's book ''WTF? What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us'' was published, in which he discusses the consequences of technology and its potential to enhance the human experience.

Advocacy

O'Reilly has worked as an activist for a number of causes and prides himself on his company's "long history of advocacy,

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

-making, and

evangelism In Christianity, evangelism (or witnessing) is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are i ...

." As a strategy of persuasion, he has evolved a technique of "meme engineering," which seeks to modify the terminology that people use.

Early causes

In 1996, O'Reilly fought against a 10-Connection Limit on TCP/IP NT Workstations, writing a letter to the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

, and

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, concerned that the Internet was still in its infancy, and that limitations could cripple the technology before it ever had a chance to reach its full potential. In 2001, O'Reilly was involved in a dispute with

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

, against Amazon's one-click patent and, specifically, Amazon's assertion of that patent against rival

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

. The protest ended with O'Reilly and Amazon.com founder

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...

visiting Washington D.C. to lobby for patent reform.

Open source software

In 1998, O'Reilly helped rebrand

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

under the term

. O'Reilly sees the role of open source as being inseparable from the development of the Internet, pointing to the widely used

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

protocol,

sendmail Sendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) used for email transport over the Internet. A descendant of the ...

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and other open source platforms. He is concerned about trends towards new forms of lock-in.

Web 2.0

In 2003, after the

dot com bust The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

, O'Reilly Media's corporate goal was to reignite enthusiasm in the computer industry. Dale Dougherty, an executive at O'Reilly, invoked the phrase "Web 2.0" during a brainstorming session. Though O'Reilly is often credited with popularizing the phrase Web 2.0, it originated with Darcy DiNucci, who coined the term in 1999. O'Reilly went on to popularize the phrase as a handle for the resurgence of the web after the

of 2000, and as a generic term for the "harnessing of

collective intelligence Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...

" viewed as the hallmark of this resurgence. O'Reilly first called an "executive conference" in 2004, inviting five hundred technology and business leaders, followed by a public version of the event in 2005. Annual iterations of the event, known as the "

Web 2.0 Summit The Web 2.0 Summit (originally known as the Web 2.0 Conference) was an annual event, held in San Francisco, California from 2004 to 2011, that featured discussions about the World Wide Web. The event was started by Tim O'Reilly, who is also widely ...

" from 2006 onwards, continued until 2011. O'Reilly and employees of O'Reilly Media have applied the "2.0" concept to conferences in publishing and government, amongst other things. O'Reilly envisions the

Internet Operating System An Internet operating system, or Internet OS, is any type of operating system designed to run all of its applications and services through an Internet client, generally a web browser. The advantages of such an OS would be that it would run on a ''th ...

as consisting of various sub systems, such as media, payment, speech recognition, location, and identity. He uses the analogy of the

biome A biome () is a biogeographical unit consisting of a biological community that has formed in response to the physical environment in which they are found and a shared regional climate. Biomes may span more than one continent. Biome is a broader ...

of the human body having more bacterial than human cells (a ratio lately estimated at 1.3:1), but depending upon millions of other organisms each pursuing their own interest but nevertheless weaving a co-operative web.

Government as platform

O'Reilly has been propagating the notion of "government as platform", or "Gov 2.0". He is considered the most enthusiastic promoter of algorithmic regulation, the ongoing monitoring and modification of government policies via

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

feedback.

Inner source

In 2001, O'Reilly coined the term

inner source InnerSource is the use of open source software development best practices and the establishment of an open source-like culture within organizations for the development of its non-open-source and/or proprietary software. The term was coined by T ...

for the use of

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

practices and the establishment of an open source-like culture within organisations whereby the organisation may still develop

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

but internally opens up its development.

Personal life

After graduating from Harvard, O'Reilly married his first wife, Christina, with whom he moved to the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

area. The couple raised two daughters, Arwen and Meara. Arwen is married to Saul Griffith. On 11 April 2015 O'Reilly married

Jennifer Pahlka Jennifer Pahlka (born 27 December 1969) is the founder and former Executive Director of Code for America. She served as US Deputy Chief Technology Officer from June 2013 to June 2014 and helped found the United States Digital Service. Previously s ...

, a former Deputy CTO of the US, and Founder and former Executive Director of

References

External links

FUTURIST magazine interview with O'Reilly
Re: Future of Publishing
NerdTV Interview
(video, audio, and transcript available) – 29 September 2005
Tim O'Reilly interview – O'Reilly on Linux
PC Pro interview covering Linux, Java and books
Tim O'Reilly talks about Govt 2.0 at Aspen Ideas Festival, July 2009
video
Tim O'Reilly on FLOSS Weekly
* Speaking with Stewart Brand and The Long Now on the subjec
“Birth of the Global Mind”
(020130905) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oreilly, Tim 1954 births Living people American technology writers People from County Cork Harvard College alumni People from Sebastopol, California Irish emigrants to the United States Open content activists Irish computer programmers Perl people Open source advocates