I don't want to make a competition or correct the author, but I consider Wikipedia, Facebook and Google computer programs as well* and they had even more direct impact on the society rather than databases to organize information (just as example).

* Programs which are multiuser, distributed and offering a UI offered in the browser.

I'd call those things services, since they are a huge collection of programs, data and to some degree human operation and hardware.

Haha, when I read the headline, I immediately thought about gcc and apache httpd.

Got at least one right and one close enough ;)

Came here thinking about visicalc. Important but quite a smaller impact...

The Linux kernel but not UNIX? gcc but not pcc or dmr's cc? That's a pretty bad list I'd say.

And 'hello world', the program that made the world much more amicable.

That must be named as world's smallest and most famous code.

Dang, I was thinking about Microsoft Encarta !

I came up with DOS. Sad me