Apple is donating the source code for its MacPaint software to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The donation was spurred by the efforts of Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original developers of the Macintosh, after a 2004 event honoring the Mac’s 20th anniversary.

What you’ll find are actually two files, one containing the source code of MacPaint itself, the other containing QuickDraw, which Hertzfeld calls “the single most important component of the original Macintosh technology.” It was a key enabling technology not only for MacPaint but for the entire Mac interface, and by itself amounts to about one-third of the source code for the original Macintosh operating system.

Hertzfeld worked with MacPaint creator Bill Atkinson to get the source code off of an Apple Lisa machine. Approval to donate the source code finally cleared legal hurdles in January, 2010, when Hertzfeld was able to contact Steve Jobs to request permission.

Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum [Bloomberg Businessweek]