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Free and open-source software

"FLOSS", "FOSS", and "Free and open-source" redirect here. For hardware, see Open-source hardware. For other uses of "Foss", see Foss (disambiguation). For other uses of "Floss", see Floss (disambiguation).
A screenshot of free and open-source software (FOSS): Fedora Linux 36 running the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment, Firefox, Dolphin file manager, VLC media player, LibreOffice Writer, GIMP, and KCalc

Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software – modified or not – to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free software and open-source software.[a][1] The rights guaranteed by FOSS originate from the "Four Essential Freedoms" of The Free Software Definition and the criteria of The Open Source Definition.[4][6] All FOSS must have publicly available source code, but not all source-available software is FOSS. FOSS is the opposite of proprietary software, which is licensed restrictively or has undisclosed source code.[4]

The historical precursor to FOSS was the hobbyist and academic public domain software ecosystem of the 1960s to 1980s. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices.[9][10] Free-software licenses and open-source licenses have been adopted by many software packages. Reasons for using FOSS include decreased software costs, increased security against malware, stability, privacy, opportunities for educational usage, and giving users more control over their own hardware.

The free software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production, adoption and promotion of FOSS, with the former preferring to use the equivalent term free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS). FOSS is supported by a loosely associated movement of multiple organizations, foundations, communities and individuals who share basic philosophical perspectives and collaborate practically, but may diverge in detail questions.

  1. ^ a b Sources describing free and open-source software as an umbrella term encompassing both free software and open source software: [4][5][6][7][8]
  2. ^ Feller 2005, pp. 89, 362.
  3. ^ Feller 2005, pp. 101–106, 110–111.
  4. ^ a b c Fortunato, Laura; Galassi, Mark (17 May 2021). "The case for free and open source software in research and scholarship". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 379 (2197). Royal Society: 7. doi:10.1098/rsta.2020.0079. PMID 33775148.
  5. ^ Crowston, Kevin; Wei, Kangning; Howison, James; Wiggins, Andrea (5 March 2008). "Free/Libre open-source software development: What we know and what we do not know". ACM Computing Surveys. 44 (2). Association for Computing Machinery: 7:1–7:35. doi:10.1145/2089125.2089127. ISSN 0360-0300. Retrieved 15 December 2024. FLOSS is an umbrella term covering a diversity of kinds of software and approaches to development [...] The distinction between free software and open-source software is sometimes controversial, and there are important differences between these two development communities [Kelty 2008]. However, our focus in this article is research on their development processes, which are acknowledged by participants to be largely similar [...], hence our use of this umbrella term.
  6. ^ a b Greenleaf, Graham; Lindsay, David (7 June 2018). "Voluntary Licensing Creating Public Rights". Public Rights: Copyright's Public Domains. Cambridge University Press. pp. 483, 485. doi:10.1017/9781316460214.017. ISBN 978-1-107-13406-5. Retrieved 15 December 2024. The two predominant strains of FOSS licences are those that comply with the Open Source Initiative's 'Open Source Definition', and those that comply with the Free Software Foundation's 'Free Software Definition' [...] The list of 'open source' licences kept by the OSI, and of 'free' software licences kept by the FSF, are together called FOSS (free and open-source software) licences. All FOSS licences, because they meet the requirements of either OSI or FSF, should also meet our criteria for neutral voluntary licences and thus software licensed under them is part of the public domain.
  7. ^ Mitchell, Iain G. (2009). "Foreword and statement of purpose: an introduction to IFOSS L. Rev". International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. 1 (1): 5. ISSN 2666-8106. Retrieved 15 December 2024. The Review does not endorse any one licensing model, focus or emphasis, but rather seeks, in an academically rigorous and objective manner, to increase the knowledge and understanding about the legal mechanisms used by all forms of Free and Open Source Software licences. It uses the term Free and Open Source Software to cover both Free Software and Open Source Software. FOSS is a term that can be used without particular bias towards either political approach.
  8. ^ Maracke, Catharina (2019). "Free and Open Source Software and FRAND-based patent licenses". Journal of World Intellectual Property. 22 (3–4). Wiley: 78–102. doi:10.1111/jwip.12114. ISSN 1747-1796. The term "Free and Open Source Software" includes both, Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Software as defined by the Open Source Initiative. In the following article, the term Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) will be used.
  9. ^ Hatlestad 2005.
  10. ^ Claburn 2007.


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برمجية حرة مفتوحة المصدر Arabic Azad və açıq mənbəli proqram təminatı AZ মুক্ত ও উন্মুক্ত উৎসের সফটওয়্যার Bengali/Bangla FOSS Catalan FOSS CEB بەرنامەی خۆڕایی و سەرچاوەکراوە CKB Svobodný a otevřený software Czech Free/Libre and Open Source Software Danish Free/Libre Open Source Software German Ελεύθερο Λογισμικό και Λογισμικό Ανοιχτού Κώδικα Greek

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