Open Source Software

Open source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Some open source software is available within the public domain.

Open source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open content movements. A report by Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.