Examples of desktop software with 20+ years of longevity?

This is very normal in the open source world: Half of the desktop software included in a modern Linux distro I was using in the late 90s!

From memory: VLC, GIMP, Blender, Audacity, Firefox, Gedit, OpenOffice, XBMC (now Kodi), FileZilla - the list is HUGE

Find your favourites here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_s...

Notepad++ is close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B, 19 years ago. It's text editing engine, Scintilla, is 24 years old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintilla_(software)

Staroffice which became OpenOffice and Then Libreoffice would be another

AutoCAD is 40 years old

Adobe Products:

Photoshop, the grand-daddy, released in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop

After effects was Aldus in 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_After_Effects

3D software:

Cinema4D was released for the Amiga in 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_4D

Lightwave 3D started in 1990: https://www.lightwave3d.com/

Poser was started in 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser_(software)

3DS max in 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk_3ds_Max

Maya was released in 1998: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk_Maya

Fusion compositing software has been around since 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmagic_Fusion

OmniGraffle started in 2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OmniGraffle

- Mathematica(https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/scrapbook/) — Still going, and Stephen Wolfram won’t let you forget that

- xScope (https://xscopeapp.com/history) — OK, I’m cheating, 19 years, but still a notable tool in my toobox

- Transmit (https://panic.com/transmit/) — Though it debuted as “Transit”, it’s been going since 1998

Beyond Compare by Scooter Software.

Beyond Compare is perfect software (in my not so humble opinion). I use it every day.

https://www.scootersoftware.com/

I still use IrfanView, which is 26 years old (1996)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IrfanView

Firefox 2004 = 18 years, though I remember using the older version Firebird (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_early_version_history) already. Thunderbird (July 2003)

Emacs comes to mind: it has a codebase stretching back to the 1970s and is still actively developed, with a dedicated following of users (myself included).

I'm sure you'll see lots of examples in answers to your question. You can add millions of not-household-name business programs to the list.

Any OS that has been around a while, and is still active (aka Windows, Linux, MacOS etc) will have lots and lots of long-life software.

It's an interesting dynamic because newer programmers have this impression that "software has a short life-span before it's eclipsed by something new and shiny."

In truth, it's the opposite. Y2K showed us that software literally written in the 60s was still in play (30+ years) and stuff from the 80s (10-20) years was common.

Even today COBOL programs exist, and that was unfashionable 30 years ago.

Sure your web-frontend, JavaScript framework-based interface might not last long, but the real software doing the work lasts a long long time.

This idea that you just rewrite everything every 5 years is a complete myth and yet every generation (including my own) has this impression when they start out.

20 years is actually not that old. When I attend conference's and take a straw-poll, many programmers there have a single product that originated in the DOS era, and have been actively built on for more than 30 years. DOS, 16 bit Windows, then 32 bit, even 64 bit, Web, Mobile, the more it changes the more it stays the same.

The parasolid geometrical kernel is from the 80's, underlies many of the major CAD products today. Same for Dassault's ACIS and its lineage.

Also: VLC, Matlab, Mathematica, many of the major DAW programs like Cubase

Supermemo v7, Piotr Wozniak's spaced repetition (and a bunch of other things) platform, was rewritten in Turbo Pascal in 1993. The most recent version, 18, is an obvious continuation of the same interface (to me, the most striking difference from Windows 3.1 to modern is window decorations).

https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_7

Reason (music making software). Released in 2000 and still an actively developed code base. Still some code from 23 years ago running in production :)

VLC Media Player is 22 years old

PuTTY SSH client is 24 years old

The mIRC IRC Client is 28 years old

Theatre Manager (https://www.artsman.com/about/) is, depending on how you count, up to 37 years old.

Software I use regularly:

Firefox is over 20 years old if you count Phoenix.

Scribus will reach 20 years in a month

Inkscape will be 20 years old later this year

GIMP is 25

Thunderbird is very close to 20...

VLC is 22

MATLAB is nearly 40 years old, though it's current GUI version is probably 22 years old?

gpredict is 22

ROOT is nearly 30 years old

GNOME is 24 years old

I still use Paint Shop Pro 6. Purchased it in 1999. I still use it today on a daily basis (screenshots cropping, resizing, cleaning, censoring, etc.).

Basically copy-pasted the folder to every new laptop/computer I used since. I tried several other image manipulation tools but always came back to launching psp.exe.

[EDIT: I see many people answered things like Firefox or Photoshop. As I understood your question, you meant software compiled 20 years ago or more and still running on modern computers. Otherwise, yes, I probably can include things like VLC, notepad++, Firefox, Office suite, etc. but it seems to me that is not the initial goal of your question.]

FL Studio (aka Fruity Loops)

>The first version of FruityLoops (1.0.0) was developed by Didier Dambrin and was partially released on December 18, 1997.[13] Its official launch was in early 1998

I finally released version 2.0 of my own desktop software after 10 years development (Free SQL tool): https://www.timestored.com/b/qstudio-2-05-dark-theme-and-hig... 1.0 supported one database only, 2.0 added postgres/mysql/etc. so felt like the time to bump versions :) It's been the same code base in java that whole time, no big rewrites. I guess it helps that I was working in the SQL area for 5 years before writing the tool, so I knew what I wanted. I must say java/jfreechart/swing have kept working perfectly all this time with very minor changes. The most painful was a)xstream/logging/security vulneribilities causing dependency changes b) misc.sun deprecation, I used internal class DSA for encryption of license keys, had to migrate users to new keys. Changing a contract with users is always painful. I'm very very glad that I automated tests from the start, it's the only thing that catches edge cases I've forgotten after all this time.

Rogue Amoeba: Audio Hijack (2002)

TLA Systems: PCalc (1992)

Flying Meat, Primate Labs: VoodooPad (2003)

C-Command Software: SpamSieve (2002)

The Omni Group: OmniOutliner (2000)

Mozilla: Firefox (2002)

Opera (1995)

DOOM

https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/

Steam! It will hit 20 years this September.

Also some games are crazy old and still developed Dwarf fortress is 2006 (almost 20 years old), Open TTD is 19 years old, probably some others as well.

I work with building automation HVAC software and it's expected to last the lifetime of buildings so it's very common in my industry. Automated Logic WebCTRL in it's present web server form has crossed the 20 year mark and the controllers it is compatible with are in the 35+ year range.

After 45 years TeX (1978) [0] and LaTeX (1984) [1] are by far the most popular typesetting system in academic publishing. For example, a vast majority of all papers on arXiv.org are typeset in LaTeX. Thank you very much Professor Knuth [2]!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth

My hobby is working on a 20+ year game engine. Still occasionally delete DOS-only code in it. https://github.com/ArmageddonGames/ZQuestClassic

IntelliJ IDEA.

1.0 / January 2001; 22 years ago

FFmpeg - my favorite video/audio file transcoder.

Initial release in Dec 2000.

FFmpeg 6.0 "Von Neumann" 6.0 was released on 2023-02-27

Edit: I see OP mentions Desktop software. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac, so I guess that qualifies.

Pidgin deserves a mention - 24 years and still under development. The project has been undergoing a huge rewrite for 3.x, which has stalled visible progress somewhat, but I'm really hoping it will be worth it, as I'm excited to see it supporting modern IM features with protocols such as XMPP.

The lead developer regularly streams live coding sessions and quarterly project updates: https://pidgin.im/post/

AbiWord, Blender, FileZilla, GIMP, LibreOffice (formerly known as OpenOffice, formerly known as Star Office), Opera, PuTTY, Seamonkey (formerly known as Mozilla Suit), Stellarium, Thunderbird, WinSCP

KDE and Gnome probably have some old running apps too. There are many long-running open source desktop-apps I think, because there is no economical stress for its development.

In the commercial section I could name Directory Opus, DEVONthink, Maple, Mathematica, Pegasus Mail, The Bat!, Tinderbox

QuickBooks is 40 years old. It was released in 1983. TurboTax is 39 years old. Microsoft Word was released in 1989. I suspect there's a lot of old Windows software.

Panic's Transmit debuted in the late 90s and is still going strong: https://www.panic.com/transmit/

Coincidentally, this post is currently adjacent to one on the Thunderbird logo redesign: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36063943

I worked on some windows software back around 1995 or so that is still in use today.

Apparently we released it in 1997! https://www.amdocs.com/sites/default/files/2021-07/Actix-Ana...

REALbasic / REAL Studio / Xojo ... a derivative of Basic. I first started using it back in '98 to write software for Mac OS 8. It's still around and can now build software for Windows and Linux too.

It's a great language to learn when you're getting started. But I've long since moved on to more low-level, performant, and industry-standard languages.

Right now, other than the browser, the applications open on my desktop are:

GNOME Terminal (lists copyrights going back to 2002)

Notepad++ (running under WINE, first release in 2003)

Claws Mail (2001)

LibreOffice (forked from OpenOffice in 2010, OpenOffice was open sourced in 2000 and was based on StarOffice which was released in 1985)

Intellij IDEA (first release in 2001)

GNOME calculator (lists copyrights going back to 1986)

WinZIP 8.0 goes back to 2000, so I think it's even older than that for earlier versions. Several mentions here of WinRAR, but didn't see WinZIP yet.

I use WinZIP with built-in encryption every day for incremental backups, also for password management (my password manager is a plain text file encrypted via WinZIP).

Does VisualStudio IDE count? I recall using MSVC 1.5 in 1995.

Nastran simulation software

The NASTRAN system was released to NASA in 1968.

NASTRAN software application was written to help design more efficient space vehicles such as the Space Shuttle. NASTRAN was released to the public in 1971 by NASA's Office of Technology Utilization. The commercial use of NASTRAN has helped to analyze the behavior of elastic structures of any size, shape, or purpose. For example, the automotive industry uses the program to design front suspension systems and steering linkages. It is also used in designing railroad tracks and cars, bridges, power plants, skyscrapers, and aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastran

DB Browser for SQLite (https://sqlitebrowser.org) was first released to the public domain on 2003-08-19. So, it'll be 20 years in a few months time. :)

Those I use which are still in development / actively supported would be...

CuteFTP (1996)

Quicken (1983)

TextPad (1992)

TurboTax (1984)

VLC media player (2001)

WinSCP (2000)

Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) (1998)

There are a handful more up-and-comers in the 16-19yr bracket as well. And tons that I still use, but aren't actively maintained anymore.

While not standalone apps, our data publishing plugins for Adobe InDesign (http://emsoftware.com) are now 23+ years old and going strong...

Sony Vegas was apparently released as early as 1999: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegas_Pro

The first version of the visual programming language / software vvvv first appeared in 1998:

https://visualprogramming.net/

GIMP, and probably Inkscape

Mach3 CNC https://www.sainsmart.com/products/mach3-cnc-software

Anything CAD related.

AutoCAD comes to mind first, but Siemens NX (Unigraphics) existed before and is still currently sold. Dassault CATIA is another CAD software older than 40 years.

PTC Creo (Pro/E), McNeel Rhino 3d, Dassault Sold Works, Archicad, also are software packages with really long life spans.

You can also include plugins and support tools such as simulation modules, and render plugins. Many of which have been around for 20+ years, but are too numerous to list.

Vmware workstation, released 1999

FreeBSD’s initial release was in 1993, but the original Berkeley Software Distribution it is based off of goes all the way back to 1976.

Total Commander - since 1993

I guess technically you could extend Xara back to 1991 since IIRC it's basically the Windows version of ArtWorks on RISC OS.

RealPlayer media player is still around after at least 24 years, I still use it (but haven't updated in a number of years).

BATS, the video cutting & tagging software used by nearly all MLB teams, has been around since… I wanna say the early-90s.

IDA pro, for disassembly is about 25 or 30 years old. I remember using it back in 2000 or 2002

I'm still using Gnome 2 (Mate Desktop) it was first released in 2002.

I think a lot of b2b ERP software gets to be this old. I know of multiple.

JMP from 1989

https://www.jmp.com/en_us/company/about-us.html

PhotoLine (1996, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoLine)

Calibre ~16 years

VLC ~22 years

NetNewsWire, 12 July 2002, almost 21 years, https://netnewswire.com

MailWasher anti-spam is 23 years old and still going strong. https://Firetrust.com

Microsoft Excel - still going strong after 30+ years.

- xterm, a DEC video terminal emulator (1984)

- Xorg itself (2004)

Basically creative suites:

- Photoshop

- Gimp

- Blender

- Maya 3D

- 3ds Max

- Audacity

- Ableton Live

Office stuff:

- Microsoft Office

- SAP ERPs

It's a depressingly short list relative to the amount of software that's been written throughout history.

Cubase (1989) DAW

Finale (1988) Music notation software

foobar (2002), and it's not OSS

Starcraft 1 is over 20 years old and still has cash prize tournaments today.

Some games: Myst, Zork, etc.

SecureCRT (terminal emulator) is still around after at least 24 years.

Logic Pro (1993)

Now it belongs to Apple but it was only acquired about 20 years ago

World of Warcraft is coming up on 20 years in 2024.

Advanced Installer: 20 years old, still getting regular releases.

https://www.advancedinstaller.com/version-history.html

WinRar is from 1995

NcFTP (ftp client) has been around over 30 years.

Some music software such as Cubase, Logic Pro

My personal favorite: WinRAR (1995).

- MPlayer

- CTWM

- ImageMagick

- Dillo

Bloomberg Terminal, 1982

Bink by RAD game tools.

Also GNU/Octave

WinSCP - 23y

mIRC

Initial release date: February 28, 1995

It's might be easier to list what failed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2003_software

CD/DVD writing software is gone, from life, possibly still being developed. Yep still going strong https://www.cyberlink.com/blog/media-player-windows/983/best...