open-source

adjective

ˈō-pən-ˈsȯrs 

1

a

of software : having the source code freely available for possible modification and redistribution

an open-source operating system

b

: of, relating to, or promoting open-source software

the open-source movement/community

Instead, they opted for the open-source model, in which computer code is openly shared, allowing programmers to modify, improve and fix the software.

—Steve Lohr

2

a

: publicly available for use by the community at large

open-source images

The team uses open-source materials such as obituaries in local newspapers and cemetery visits for its count.

—Brendan Hoffman

b

: relating to or utilizing information that is publicly available

an open-source analysis

Since the advent of the internet, social media and smartphones, open-source intelligence has undergone a revolution as people willingly and publicly post vast amounts of information online. Actors outside of the traditional intelligence community have begun to take notice.

—Nick Waters

Examples of open-source in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Defense Express, a Ukrainian open-source military analysis group, said the radar system was designed to warn against missiles from the south and east of Russia, such as those flying from China or India. —Maria Varenikova, New York Times, 30 May 2024

In the early days, the team used an open-source library for text classification called fastText, sometimes in combination with regular expressions. —Casey Sackett, IEEE Spectrum, 26 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1957, in the meaning defined at sense 2