Not trying to be contentious, but I've got a 5-digit slashdot ID and I've never heard that phrase explicitly used in my entire life as a term of art by software devs, including at or around 1999.
Definitely not saying that nobody was using the term, but "widespread use" is a big claim that requires some substantiation. It absolutely does not align with my lived experience of the time.
I know whatever's written in Wikipedia doesn't necessarily have to be authoritative, but it's worth to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)#History