Free and open-source software

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 that is available under a license that grants the right to use, modify, and distribute the software, modified or not, to everyone free of charge. The public availability of the source code is, therefore, a necessary but not sufficient condition. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term for free software and open-source software.[a][1] FOSS is in contrast to proprietary software, which consists of software under restrictive copyright or licensing as well as software with undisclosed source code.

The rights granted to users of FOSS originate from the "Four Essential Freedoms" of the Free Software Definition and the criteria of The Open Source Definition.[4][6] Other benefits of 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. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used today, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices.[9][10] Free-software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages today. 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 term free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS).

  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 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. Retrieved 15 December 2024. 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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Free and open-source software

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