Open source pronunciation software

Home Contact Donate Login. Search form. The membership drive we launched at the end of surpassed our expectations. ClearlyDefined is a central, curated data store for Open Source Software licenses. And in order to use proprietary software, computer users must agree usually by signing a license displayed the first time they run this software that they will not do anything with the software that the software's authors have not expressly permitted.

Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop are examples of proprietary software. Open source software is different. Its authors make its source code available to others who would like to view that code, copy it, learn from it, alter it, or share it. As they do with proprietary software, users must accept the terms of a license when they use open source software—but the legal terms of open source licenses differ dramatically from those of proprietary licenses.

Open source licenses affect the way people can use, study, modify, and distribute software. In general, open source licenses grant computer users permission to use open source software for any purpose they wish. Some open source licenses—what some people call "copyleft" licenses—stipulate that anyone who releases a modified open source program must also release the source code for that program alongside it. Moreover, some open source licenses stipulate that anyone who alters and shares a program with others must also share that program's source code without charging a licensing fee for it.

By design, open source software licenses promote collaboration and sharing because they permit other people to make modifications to source code and incorporate those changes into their own projects.

They encourage computer programmers to access, view, and modify open source software whenever they like, as long as they let others do the same when they share their work. Open source technology and open source thinking both benefit programmers and non-programmers.

Because early inventors built much of the Internet itself on open source technologies—like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server application —anyone using the Internet today benefits from open source software.

Every time computer users view web pages, check email, chat with friends, stream music online, or play multiplayer video games, their computers, mobile phones, or gaming consoles connect to a global network of computers using open source software to route and transmit their data to the "local" devices they have in front of them.

The computers that do all this important work are typically located in faraway places that users don't actually see or can't physically access—which is why some people call these computers "remote computers. More and more, people rely on remote computers when performing tasks they might otherwise perform on their local devices.

For example, they may use online word processing, email management, and image editing software that they don't install and run on their personal computers. Instead, they simply access these programs on remote computers by using a Web browser or mobile phone application. When they do this, they're engaged in "remote computing. Some people call remote computing "cloud computing," because it involves activities like storing files, sharing photos, or watching videos that incorporate not only local devices but also a global network of remote computers that form an "atmosphere" around them.

Cloud computing is an increasingly important aspect of everyday life with Internet-connected devices. Some cloud computing applications, like Google Apps, are proprietary. Others, like ownCloud and Nextcloud , are open source. Cloud computing applications run "on top" of additional software that helps them operate smoothly and efficiently, so people will often say that software running "underneath" cloud computing applications acts as a " platform " for those applications.

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Save Word. Definition of open-source. First Known Use of open-source , in the meaning defined at sense 1. Learn More About open-source. Time Traveler for open-source The first known use of open-source was in See more words from the same year. Dictionary Entries Near open-source open someone or something to someone or something open-source open-stack See More Nearby Entries.