Proprietary software

Proprietary software is software which has been designed and coded by or for a specific person, organization or group of organizations, who hold ownership or intellectual property rights over the software. Such software is usually built to specification by a company, used only by that company, and not available for sale to third parties or the general public. The user of the software has total control over the code and how the software is used.

Related Topics:
Software - Coded - Ownership - Intellectual property

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The Free Software Foundation applies the term to any software which is "non-free" or semi-free. The modification, use and redistribution of proprietary software is prohibited, or requires express permission from the originator. "Non-free" is a customary designation for software that fails the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which follow the same basic idea of software freedom and on which the Open Source Initiative definition of open source is based. "Proprietary" indicates that some individual or company has exclusive rights in a piece of software as a result of copyright or a patent, which serves to deny legal access to the software's source code by third parties for the purpose of copying or modifying the software.

Related Topics:
Free Software Foundation - Semi-free - Debian Free Software Guidelines - Software freedom - Open Source Initiative - Open source - Proprietary - Exclusive right - Copyright - Patent - Source code

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As "proprietary" indicates private ownership and control, software can remain proprietary even where source code is released into the public domain, if control over the use, distribution, or modification of the software is retained (e.g., as demonstrated by the commercial version of SSH, or by way of the Microsoft Shared source licence programme). On the other hand, software is considered non-proprietary when it is released with a license that permit others to "fork" the software and release their own modified versions without onerous restrictions, even though exclusive rights may be retained in relation to the original software. Control has been conceded and the software is theoretically no longer proprietary.

Related Topics:
Public domain - SSH - Microsoft - Shared source - Fork

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Many types of software that are offered free of charge are proprietary, such as freeware, shareware and abandonware. This is because the source code in those distribution schemes is closed, or modification is prohibited, or redistribution requires express permission of an individual, organisation or company.

Related Topics:
Freeware - Shareware - Abandonware

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