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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

Meanwhile, China’s open-source models provide similar reasoning capabilities but at very low prices.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

There would be no licensing regime and no new agency, and open-source models and startups would sit outside the process.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

GeoConfirmed, a volunteer-driven open-source intelligence project that verifies visuals from conflicts around the globe, also urged Google to reconsider.

From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026

Google announced a new feature allowing Google Earth users to generate AI visualizations on top of the service's satellite imagery, sparking concerns from researchers and open-source intelligence experts about the potential for disinformation.

From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 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

Banning open source at home won’t make the world safer.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

The protest was co-hosted by the chief executive of Hugging Face, an AI company that provides open source tools.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

The real death toll is believed to be far higher, and military experts believe our analysis of open source reflects 45-55% of the total number.

From BBC ● Jul. 3, 2026

“The entire strategy here is to have an industry standard stack that is completely open source that can be deployed by any customers, on Qualcomm chips, but also on competitive chips,” Palkhiwala said.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

Mesmerized by the politics of open source, I’d started writing for the site for free.

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