Open source
Also called: open source
The term open source is best known thanks to open source software.
With open source, the management and development of a product is not in the hands of a company, but in the hands of a community consisting of more or less independent developers. The source code is public and, in principle, anyone can contribute to the (continued) development. Choices regarding design and quality assurance are organized as much as possible within the community.
Both the source files, documentation and the final product become part of the public domain. This means that, within certain conditions, these products can in principle be used freely.
In an ideal world, users pay back to the developer community by also contributing to the community.
Linux
Probably the best-known example of a product based on open source is the operating system Linux. Founder Linus Torvalds used parts of existing open source software for development in the early 1990s. Since then, many other developers have contributed to the Linux project. Linux's kernel also served as the basis for other operating systems, including Android.
The fact that open source products are in the public domain does not necessarily mean that the use of such products is always free and free. To cite the example of Linux, several commercial "distributions" of this exist, consisting of bundles of related programs, graphics shells, drivers and support.
