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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>open source</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../O.html" title="O"/><link rel="previous" href="open.html" title="open"/><link rel="next" href="open-switch.html" title="open switch"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">open source</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="open.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">O</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="open-switch.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="open-source"/><dt xmlns="" id="open-source"><b>open source</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [common; also adj. <span class="firstterm">open-source</span>] Term coined in March 1998
following the Mozilla release to describe software distributed in source
under licenses guaranteeing anybody rights to freely use, modify, and
redistribute, the code. The intent was to be able to sell the hackers'
ways of doing software to industry and the mainstream by avoiding the
negative connotations (to <a href="../S/suit.html"><i class="glossterm">suit</i></a>s) of the term
&#8220;<span class="quote"><a href="../F/free-software.html"><i class="glossterm">free software</i></a></span>&#8221;. For discussion of the
follow-on tactics and their consequences, see the <a href="http://www.opensource.org" target="_top">Open Source Initiative</a>
site.</p></dd><dd><p>Five years after this term was invented, in 2003, it is worth noting
the huge shift in assumptions it helped bring about, if only because the
hacker culture's collective memory of what went before is in some ways
blurring. Hackers have so completely refocused themselves around the idea
and ideal of open source that we are beginning to forget that we used to do
most of our work in closed-source environments. Until the late 1990s open
source was a sporadic exception that usually had to live on top of a
closed-source operating system and alongside closed-source tools; entire
open-source environments like <a href="../L/Linux.html"><i class="glossterm">Linux</i></a> and the *BSD
systems didn't even exist in a usable form until around 1993 and weren't
taken very seriously by anyone but a pioneering few until about five years
later. </p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="open.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../O.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="open-switch.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">open<EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>open switch</td></tr></table></div></body></html>