There are three dimensions to the concept of "open source" as it applies to computing. First, open source is a philosophy about computing and sharing programming code to improve the quality of computing. The term "open source" also refers to a wide array of operating systems and applications that have been developed under this philosophy, and, finally, it represents a general approach to the treatment of intellectual property, usually in reference to licensing software or related documentation.

Origins of Open Source Computing

The idea of sharing the source code for computer programs so that the programs can be debugged, modified, or improved is a practice that began in the late 1950s, when IBM provided programmers employed by their customers with access to the source code for applications running on their mainframe computers. The idea of creating source code for the purposes of sharing it can be...