[common; also adj. open-source] Term coined in March 1998
following the Mozilla release to describe software distributed in source
under licenses guaranteeing anybody rights to freely use, modify, and
redistribute, the code. The intent was to be able to sell the hackers'
ways of doing software to industry and the mainstream by avoiding the
negative connotations (to suits) of the term
free software
. For discussion of the
follow-on tactics and their consequences, see the Open Source Initiative
site.