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open-source

American  
[oh-puhn-sawrs, -sohrs] / ˈoʊ pənˈsɔrs, -ˈsoʊrs /

adjective

  1. Computers. pertaining to or denoting software whose source code is available free of charge to the public to use, copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute.

  2. pertaining to or denoting a product or system whose origins, formula, design, etc., are freely accessible to the public.

open source British  

noun

    1. intellectual property, esp computer source code, that is made freely available to the general public by its creators

    2. ( as modifier ) Compare closed source

      open source software
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
open-source Scientific  

  1. Relating to source code that is available to the public without charge. Open-source code is often enhanced, improved, and adapted for specific purposes by interested programmers, with the revised versions of the code are made available to the public. For example, most of the code in the Linux operating system is open-source.

Etymology

Origin of open-source

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The history of open-source software tells us a lot about the future of AI.

From The Wall Street Journal

It will also make use of AMD’s ROCm software, an open-source offering.

From MarketWatch

Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine exactly four years ago, AFP has used open-source data and satellite imagery to support reporting by its teams on the ground.

From Barron's

Previously, he was a writer at Wired, the IDG News Service and Linux Magazine, where he covered cloud computing, business technology, bitcoin, artificial intelligence and open-source software.

From The Wall Street Journal

Cisco’s Project CodeGuard is an open-source framework that embeds secure coding practices into workflows, guiding AI assistants to generate secure code.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.