Free and Open Source Software · WebGlossary.info

Software that can be classified as both free software and open source software, that is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users. Although there is almost a complete overlap between free software licenses and open source software licenses, there is a strong philosophical disagreement between the advocates of the two positions. The terminology of FOSS was created to be a neutral on these philosophical disagreements between the FSF and OSI, and to have a single unified term that could refer to both concepts. ← Wikipedia