Open-source: Difference between revisions

Open Source is a broad term. It often refers to an object, physical or digital, that has it's design blueprints/recipe, or software code made freely available to the public to share, modify, and in some permitted cases, sell. This is made possible by giving the object a very lenient copyright license. Open-source as a concept is part of the [[w:copyleft|Copyleft movement]].

In todays world, a lot of knowledge is not free. A lot of knowledge is horded by the wealthy by abusing copyright patents. It can allow corporations to develop life saving medicines and other beneficial things for our world and put them behind a paywall. The owners of the patents dictate how their licensed "objects" can be used, and to what extent the customer can own them. A significant skill gap can widen between those connected to the owners of patented knowledge and those who are not. The owners of a patented product can also determine it's build quality, and that not only helps enforce [[w:planned_obsolescence|planned obsolescence]] but it greatly contributes to [[w:e-waste|e-waste]]. Proprietary software can also have malicious things hidden in it's code.