Open Source is a trademark and license granted by the Open Source Initiative to software that meets certain criteria. It allows users to see and modify the source code. It is an alternative to proprietary commercial software and encourages peer review and collaboration among developers.
Open Source refers to at least two things. First, it is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative® and a license that the Open Source Initiative® grants to Open Source Software (OSS) that meets certain criteria, called the Open Source Definition. There are, however, other open source software ideas that do not meet the same standards and offer open source software under different types of licenses. One thing that all open source software has in common is the availability of the source code to the user, which means that the user can see exactly how the application or program was coded and is often allowed to modify it. Depending on the type of license they have, users may be able to modify and redistribute open source software.
Whatever type of license is provided, open source software is a counterpart to proprietary commercial software. Commercial proprietary software is based on a company that develops and owns the source code. The product license permits the user to use the product as manufactured by the commercial enterprise. In some cases, users are permitted and/or encouraged to create plug-ins or add-ons to enhance proprietary commercial software, but there are limits to what they are permitted to do. This is to protect the software developer’s investment.
There are several goals behind the open source software movement. One thought is that separating software development from the profit motive will encourage developers to do what’s best for the software and users, leading to products that have greater utility and fewer bugs. It is also believed that unconstrained peer review of a commercial release date, will contribute to software continuing to be updated constantly, rather than having carefully scheduled major releases that don’t happen very often, leaving users with buggy software in between. Another consideration is that by opening up the code, a large number of developers, all of whom may have thoughts on improving the software, will bring their particular skills and insights, as well as their time, to contribute to the process, accelerating development and bringing it in many directions, expanding the scope of the software.
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