MIT Technology Review: Open Source and You

“No one would buy a car with the hood welded shut, but that is
essentially what commercial software is. However, since computing
began, some software has been distributed in such a way that users
can change or repair it by modifying its source code–the
step-by-step instructions that the computer executes when the
software runs. Software distributed under a license that allows a
programmer to modify the source code and freely distribute an
improved version of it is called open source.

“Open-source software can make good business sense. For example,
a company might be able to reduce costs by building a product on
top of an existing open-source application rather than writing it
from scratch…”

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