What Is Open Source Software?

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is software that is developed openly and built collaboratively. While it may seem like this would be a chaotic process, it actually produces extremely stable long-term results—comparable to the processes of democracies and open-market economies.  While these programs are often distributed free of charge, “free” in this context actually means the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. 

Linux is just one example of thousands of Free and Open Source computer programs that are licensed in a way that actually protects their “free” status.  The GNU General Public License, originally conceived by Richard Stallman, is the most popular of this type of license. The different movements which are generally referred to as “Free and Open Source Software” are motivated by both altruism and pragmatism—by a belief that the ability to work together to create and build upon computer code benefits both the programmer (who can produce better software by not having to start from scratch and can work with and learn from others) and the ultimate users of the software (who get software that can be freely used, modified, and upgraded).

Recent studies have shown Free and Open Source software to have many fewer coding errors than proprietary software because of the “peer review” that takes place in the development process. A widely known example of an Open Source software program is the Apache web server software, which runs over 70% of the world's websites. Most of the programs which form the backbone of the Internet are Open Source software.