Software for which the source code is made available to users so that it can be modified and customized. Open source software is usually subject to a simple “public license” or a disclaimer of intellectual property rights. One meaning for “open source” is that the source code that would normally be kept confidential by the software house is disclosed to the public; open source software should not therefore be regarded as automatically subject to a public license or free. The best known example of open source software is Linux.