Article
Article
Open-source software
Article By:
Gupta, Pranshu Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, DeSales University, Center Valley, Pennsylvania.
Mata-Toledo, Ramon A. Department of Computer Science, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.
Last reviewed:July 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.470200
Computer software that is licensed by the copyright holder, granting the rights to examine, change, and distribute it to anyone and for any purpose as long as the original copyright statement in any redistributed software is preserved. The foundation of open-source software was the development of the UNIX, GNU, and Linux operating systems. Bell Labs and MIT created UNIX in the late 1960s. The operating system's source code was made available to academic institutions at a lower price than was offered to corporations and government agencies. Richard Stallman, who founded the GNU Project in 1984, took a revolutionary step in the creation and distribution of software. The GNU General Public License allows users to modify and distribute the code under the same license.
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