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

Using open-source tools, BBC Verify has been able to track some of the US deployments to the area.

From BBC

The rise of Moltbot, an open-source AI bot, is encouraging users to set up Cloudflare Tunnel for security, connecting local resources without a public IP.

From Barron's

Chinese open-source AI models have captured 30% of the “working” market, challenging U.S. competitors.

From Barron's

Germany’s digital ministry says it is testing an open-source alternative to Microsoft workplace and collaboration tools, called openDesk, both on workstations within the ministry and at some German federal agencies.

From The Wall Street Journal

But the release of Llama 4 last year left developers underwhelmed, and Meta has reportedly been using open-source models with Alibaba, Google, and OpenAI to train a new model set for release this spring.

From BBC