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Proprietary software is any closed-source material which fundamentally means that the user does not control what it does or cannot study or edit the code. The Free Software Foundation defines it as any software that is not free software or is only partially free. The modification, use and redistribution is prohibited, or requires express permission the originator. Non-free is a customary designation for software that fails the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which follow the same basic idea of software freedom and on which the Open Source Initiative definition of open source is based. Proprietary means that some individual or company holds the exclusive copyrights on a piece of software, at the same time denying other people the access to the software's source code and the right to copy, modify and study the software.The term proprietary means "privately owned and controlled". Hence software can remain proprietary even when source code is made publicly available, if control over use, distribution, or modification is retained (e.g., the commercial version of SSH and the Microsoft Shared source licence programme.) On the other hand, software is considered non-proprietary once it is released with a license that would permit others to " fork" the software and release their own modified versions without onerous restrictions, even though the copyright may remain in the hands of a single individual. At least in theory, control has been conceded.
It is important to emphasise that many types of software that are offered for free are proprietary, such as freeware, shareware and abandonwareAbandonware is computer software which is no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder. Alternately, the term is also used for software which is still available, but on which further support and development has been deliberately discontinued.. This is because the source code in those distribution schemes is closed, or modification is prohibited, or redistribution requires express permission of an individual, organisation or company.
1 See also
- closed sourceClosed source is a term invented as an antonym for open source and used to refer to any program whose licensing terms do not qualify as open source. Generally, it means that the customer will only get a binary version of the computer program they licensed
- intellectual propertyIn law, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. The term intellectual property reflects the fact that once established, such entitlements are generally tr
- non-proprietary softwareNon-proprietary software is, in its widest possible sense, software that has no proprietary restrictions attached to it, particularly the restriction about the access to the source code. Non-proprietary software is the opposite of proprietary software, wh
- open source
- open standardOpen standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. By allowing anyone to use the standard, they increase compatibility between various hardware and software components since anyone with the technical know-how and the neces
- Richard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman RMS born March 16, 1953) is the founder of the Free Software movement, the GNU project, the Free Software Foundation, and the League for Programming Freedom. He invented the concept of copyleft to protect the ideals of this moveme
- vendor lock-inIn economics, vendor lock-in also known as proprietary lock-in or more simply, lock-in is a situation in which a customer is dependent on a vendor for products and services and cannot move to another vendor without substantial costs, real and/or perceived
2 External links
Intellectual propertyIn law, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. The term intellectual property reflects the fact that once established, such entitlements are generally tr
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