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.

See also

• Closed source
• Intellectual property
• Non-proprietary software
• Open source/Free software
• Open standard
• Richard Stallman
• Vendor lock-in