What if you could inspect the software you use, change it, and share your version with someone else? Open-source software makes those possibilities a matter of rights: its license lets people use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code. section 6.5.2
Those rights also make public collaboration possible. Anyone capable of contributing can take part online, rather than leaving development to a fixed group. Being able to examine the code can help people trust the software. section 6.5.2
The idea has a wider connection to shared resources. Research on groups managing forests, irrigation, and policing challenged the assumption that shared resources must be depleted. Advocates extended those insights to software and data. Open-source software and Open Data developed in parallel, but they are distinct: one concerns software and its source code; the other concerns data. section 6.5 section 6.5.2
Open-source software has become a major force in software development and has changed how software is delivered and sold. When you encounter a claim that software is open source, the useful next question is what its license actually lets you use, inspect, change, and share. section 6.9 section 6.5.2
