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

China’s large language models have closed most of the gap with top U.S. models and now lead in open-source, she notes.

From The Wall Street Journal

Of five finalist companies in the three-year competition, three have been found to use at least some open-source codes from foreign AI models, including Chinese ones.

From The Wall Street Journal

Huang spent a large part of his keynote focused on the company’s efforts in physical AI and also announced the company’s open-source Alpamayo reasoning models for autonomous driving.

From MarketWatch

I quibble with that—because the code is open-source, it doesn’t matter who was behind it, any more than it matters who minted the first gold coin.

From The Wall Street Journal

Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the United States.

From Barron's