Bash

The Bourne Again Shell (bash) is a UNIX style shell created in 1987 by Brian Fox while he was working for the Free Software Foundation.

History
Bash was originally meant to be a replacement for the Bourne Shell. Early versions were extremely buggy and had a severely limited functionality, it is not until the mid 90s that the shell starts to become something that could replace Bourne, but that was well after Chet Ramey took over the role of developing the tool.

Version

 * 2.0 (1996-12-31)
 * 3.2.0 (2006-10-11)

Links

 * ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/
 * Bash FAQ
 * The A-Z of Programming Languages: BASH/Bourne-Again Shell - An interview with Chet Ramey - From Computerworld