Groklaw: Open Source Software: What Is It and How Does It Work?

"Open source software is playing an increasingly important role in the marketplace. It is, however, still subject to misunderstanding at both the lay and legal level. This article will attempt to clarify some of the uncertainty by addressing two fundamental issues—what open source software is, and how it works.

"What is open source software?
The term 'software' refers to two different, but related, things. One is 'source code', which is a set of human-readable and understandable instructions that comprise the 'recipe' from which an executable program can be made. The other is 'object code', which is the actual executable program—the bundle of 1s and 0s which are fed to a computer's microprocessor to make that computer perform various operations..."

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