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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

In July, OpenAI disclosed that AI systems being tested for cybersecurity capabilities had found their way outside a supposedly isolated environment and accessed systems belonging to Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

And speaking at the Brics summit in India on Sunday, Xi proposed creating a community for open-source AI.

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

Windsor said that if Hugging Face can remain the preferred platform for open-source AI models, “no one will be able to corner the market for AI services,” where Nvidia has less influence.

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

“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

Cloudera’s Ricky said the partnership reinforced both companies’ commitment to open weights and open source.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

“Beyond just what we release ourselves, we’re very strong advocates that open source should not be something that people try to restrict or lock down,” Zuckerberg told the officials.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

Decisions about whether these tools should be open source carry significant weight given their potential to do harm.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

If anything, Jesse spends more time online now; the things that draw him there—games, weblogs, chat and messaging systems, open source operating programs—have become far more advanced and compelling.

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