Established in 1983 by Don Killen, Greenleaf Software Inc. released the first commercially available C library for the PC in January 1984.

The company is a privately held Texas corporation and completely self-funded.

Greenleaf was all about making software developers lives easier by providing professionally engineered software parts - "we do the grunt work so you don't have to."

(This is Don so I can switch to first person for a moment) -- when you see deeply indented text and a switch to green, that's me:

In effect, I started this because I wanted to make something even I could build -- since I have no formal schooling or training in any aspect of software or other areas of computer technology -- and build something so simple even I could use it in the consulting work I was doing at the time. I had worked as a consultant for entities like Kurzweil, General Electric, and the Federal Government. Each assignment required me to sign away in advance the rights to anything I might come up with. It was de rigueur that I would not know up front what I would entail down the road. It was frustrating inventing things like magnetoresistive heads for disk memory and not being able to see even a single dollar from the fruit of my thoughts and efforts other than an arranged fee. The fact that others might be interested in what I was building occured to me and so I contacted a big software reseller who, after seeing a few chapters of the manual, said he thought he might be able to sell some. (End of "This is Don")

Greenleaf Functions became the standard general purpose extension library for C. Then as customers asked for interrupt driven communications, Greenleaf responded in the Fall of 1984 with the first edition of Greenleaf CommLib.

Now, 21 years later, CommLib is still a mainstay of developers all over the world who need communications in their applications.

Greenleaf soon developed updates to CommLib, and a new product, a C++ class library, Greenleaf Comm++.

In June of 2000, Greenleaf Software celebrated 15 years of continuous operation and software development in the interest of making it easier to create robust PC software that communicates. It had released numerous other developer tools such as Greenleaf MathLib, Greenleaf SuperFunctions, Greenleaf DataWindows, Greenleaf MathLib++, and Greenleaf CommX, the ActiveX communications product.

• About Copycats: a long time ago we decided three things:
  • Thing One: For every copy we sell, there will be at least two "out there"
  • Thing Two: For every product we invent there will be at least one "copycat" product and even some serious competition.
  • Thing Three: It's OK to be miffed at competitors and ticked at the "rip, burn, peddle" crowd. But losing sleep over it is counterproductive and silly. Never fight the laws of physics or the mendacity of some programmers.
• One of our best coders decided to quit and go into business. That part was understandable; it happens. This individual made the mistake of inserting whole sections of code, comments and all, into "his" new communications library. In plain English, that ain't fair. He was ordered by a judge to pay us a monthly settlement. He ended up going out of business.
• As to advertising claims like "standard," "for countless thousands of satisfied customers," when you know he's only been selling it for three weeks...well, anyone can say what they want.
• Greenleaf products are the beneficiaries of an unusual amount of word of mouth advertising--the very best kind.

As to "standard" and "countless", I'll gladly debate anyone who thinks they've really got something more proven, more reliable, used more and for more applications, or simply better.

Greenleaf Software Inc. closed its doors on June 30, 2000 after selling and transferring the Greenleaf products, this web site and other assets to sysFire LLC, and it was agreed that sysFire would continue the business of providing excellent developer tools in the tradition of Greenleaf Software.

But We're Baaack! Effective June 1, 2005, we transfered everything back to what we call Greenleaf Software II, under new management! No, we did not merge or get bought.

Greenleaf Software Inc. has been newly enfranchised under new management (Andy Johnson) effective June 1, 2005. We're Baaack!