Open source software

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.

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:

• Free Software Foundation
• Apache Software Foundation
• RedHat

References

See also

• Open Source
• The Apache Software Foundation homepage
• The Free Software Foundation homepage
• RedHat, Inc, a Commercial, for-profit company that uses Open Source software extensively