Open-Source-Software

"Open Source Software" refers to computer software in which a portion of all of the code that makes up the software is accessible for review and modification by anyone with the technical ability to do so.

Open source software is typically free although some companies will require a fee to gain access to the source and the licensee will be required to keep that source private.

The opposite of open source software is closed-source software.

With Closed Source Software typically has a fee or may be free. The code that makes up the software is hidden from view and requires some type of password or de-encryption process for access, if it's even accessible at all.

In the 1970's and 1980's, as the world was going digital, the theme was open source, community software.

Then a very small minded, greedy man by the name of Bill Gates came along and ruined a lot of community building opportunities for many decades. By most accounts Bill and his pal Steve Ballmer were Commercial Pirates and a Thieves.

Bill was the son of wealthy and influential people from Seattle who were heavily involved in Federal Banking and Eugenics. A recipe for dysfunction if there ever was one.

Steve Ballmer is that "stereotypical" Jewish Businessman that many people grow to loath.

Steve was in charge of Microsoft when they were the king of everything with more money than God, yet with his leadership Microsoft could not compete in the Mobile Hardware or O/S market nor the Tablet market.

No amount of money can buy class or truly creative skills and Steve proved that in Spades, but he's "rich" financially, for what that's worth.

Bill Gates got his big break when he licensed a reverse engineered version of Gary Kildall's DOS to IBM.

A court case in 2007 found the copy he licensed from Tim Patterson to have been a clear knock off of Kildall's work.

After having read a dozen different accounts, and looking at Bill's own criminal statements, there's no doubt both he and IBM both knew exactly what he had done. IBM did not buy the software from Gates, as opposed to licensing it, as they didn't want the criminality in their own home.

Copy-write laws for software had just come into existance at the time of the fraud and there was no case precedent. Had Bill and IBM done the same just years later, most feel Gates would have paid a Hell of a Price for his fraud, but alas, he was in the right place, at the right time, with the right maternal connections and the total lack of ethics to profit like a Ruptured King on someone elses work.

But to be clear, that wasn't the only work he pirated, nor was it the only code related monopoly he sought to control. Ref corbet report here...

https://www.theregister.com/2012/08/07/kildall_unforensic_ieee_smear/