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

Meta has already rolled out multiple consumer-facing AI tools, including AI-enabled smart glasses built in collaboration with Ray-Ban and its open-source Llama 3 AI model. —Dylan Sloan, Fortune, 26 Apr. 2024

This push for transparency is driven in part by the deluge of publicly available open-source intelligence, which invites doubts about the value of the intelligence community in a world where Bellingcat and other investigative groups seem to know as much as governments. —David V. Gioe, Foreign Affairs, 23 Apr. 2024

This is a direct result of being conceptualized, developed, and used as an open-source solution to a common problem. —Chris Gallagher, USA TODAY, 21 Apr. 2024

The pace of change with AI models is moving so fast that, even if Meta is reasserting itself atop the open-source leaderboard with Llama 3 for now, who knows what tomorrow brings. —Alex Heath, The Verge, 18 Apr. 2024

Some purport to be from open-source intelligence researchers or citizen journalists. —Jude Joffe-Block, NPR, 16 Apr. 2024

The outage broke the thousands of websites that use the open-source CDN, leaving developers scrambling for a fix. —Emma Roth, The Verge, 12 Apr. 2024

With its open-source framework and unparalleled versatility, Indexify is poised to revolutionize the way developers harness the power of unstructured data in LLM applications. —Tyler Shepherd, USA TODAY, 12 Apr. 2024

Both are open-source, meaning they can be picked over for any potential vulnerabilities. —PCMAG, 11 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1957, in the meaning defined at sense 2