History
SAS was conceived by Anthony J. Barr in 1966. As a North Carolina State University graduate student from 1962 to 1964, Barr had created an analysis of variance modeling language inspired by the notation of statistician Maurice Kendall, followed by a multiple regression program that generated machine code for performing algebraic transformations of the raw data. Drawing on those programs and his experience with structured data files, he created SAS, placing statistical procedures into a formatted file framework. From 1966 to 1968, Barr developed the fundamental structure and language of SAS.
In January 1968, Barr and Jim Goodnight collaborated, integrating new multiple regression and analysis of variance routines developed by Goodnight into Barr's framework. Goodnight's routines made the handling of basic statistical analysis more robust, and his later implementation (in SAS 76) of the general linear model increased the analytical power of the system. By 1971, SAS was gaining popularity within the academic community. One strength of the system was analyzing experiments with missing data, which was useful to the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, among others.
In 1973, John Sall joined the project, making extensive programming contributions in econometrics, time series, and matrix algebra. Other participants in the early years included Caroll G. Perkins, Jolayne W. Service, and Jane T. Helwig. Perkins made programming contributions. Service and Helwig created the early documentation.
In 1976, SAS Institute, Inc. was incorporated by Barr, Goodnight, Sall, and Helwig.
SAS sued World Programming, the developers of a competing implementation, World Programming System, alleging that they had infringed SAS's copyright in part by implementing the same functionality. This case was referred from the United Kingdom's High Court of Justice to the European Court of Justice on 11 August, 2010. In May 2012, the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of World Programming, finding that "the functionality of a computer program and the programming language cannot be protected by copyright."
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