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• open-source
  open-source

  adjective

  pertaining to or denoting software whose source code is available free of charge to the public to use, copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute.
• open source
  open source

open-source

American  

[oh-puhn-sawrs, -sohrs] / ˈoʊ pənˈsɔrs, -ˈsoʊrs /

adjective

1. Computers. pertaining to or denoting software whose source code is available free of charge to the public to use, copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute.

2. pertaining to or denoting a product or system whose origins, formula, design, etc., are freely accessible to the public.

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open source British  

noun

1. 1. intellectual property, esp computer source code, that is made freely available to the general public by its creators

   2. ( as modifier ) Compare closed source

      open source software

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open-source Scientific  

1. Relating to source code that is available to the public without charge. Open-source code is often enhanced, improved, and adapted for specific purposes by interested programmers, with the revised versions of the code are made available to the public. For example, most of the code in the Linux operating system is open-source.

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Etymology

Origin of open-source

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

open-source open source

The roll out of capable, open-source AI systems and tools by Chinese labs has shaken Western markets and developers in recent years.

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

The accelerator will further create an open-source data set tracking housing policies and launch a competition to award $5 million to companies or nonprofits developing technology to simplify building homes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

The startup began as an emoji-named app for teens before becoming a crusader for open-source artificial intelligence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

Now, he added, with its massive investment from Nvidia, Hugging Face can focus on investing and growing its role as a major open-source provider.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 4, 2026

At the moment, he had NT 5, NT 4, Work Station, Windows 98, and he and Eric had begun fooling around with Linux, the complex, open-source software system rapidly spreading across the world.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz

Chamath Palihapitiya, a highly successful tech investor, posted on X: “Dario makes the case to stop open source and concentrate enormous technological and economic power with Anthropic.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

“The big labs appear to know they are at peak power and want to lock it down by coordinating to prevent competition from open source and startups.”

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026

And they're gaining additional interest at a time when the open source market is dominated by Chinese AI models like Qwen, DeepSeek and GLM.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

Meta, Zuckerberg said, was “strongly supportive of open source, including open source AI models.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

I’d begun writing for a new website, Slashdot.org, an intensely geeky techno/pop-culture site devoted to the open source Linux operating system and to the open source and free software movements.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz