Open Source Software

Open source software is software whose source code is published under a licence that lets anyone use, study, change and share it. Linux, Android, Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC, Python and MySQL are well-known examples.

Proprietary (closed source) software keeps its code private and restricts use by licence, such as Windows and Microsoft Office. Open source licences differ: permissive ones (MIT, Apache) allow almost any use, while copyleft ones (GPL) require changed versions to stay open. Open source is not always free of cost, and free software is not always open source.

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Open Source Software

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