Open source software

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Revision as of 07:37, 5 April 2007 by imported>Eric M Gearhart (Huge edit... fixed the wording of some sections, added to links, added Netcraft reference, etc.)
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Open source software broadly speaking is software that is licensed in such a way that the source code (which is the language that computer programs are written in) is freely accessible.

The term usually describes software that is also free of charge, but this is not a must.

An Open Source project can be tested and used by thousands of users, for example the Apache HTTP Server is the most wiedly used World Wide Web server on the internet.[1]

Well Known Organizations

Several professional organizations support the Open Source community, in a moral sense as well as in Legal matters (e.g. enforcing the licensing of Open Source software). Here is a short list:

References

See also