{"id":3104,"date":"2014-05-28T12:20:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T12:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/open-source-tools\/"},"modified":"2017-01-19T13:03:08","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T13:03:08","slug":"open-source-tools","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools","title":{"rendered":"Open-Source Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_open-source_tools_mean\">What Does Open-Source Tools Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Open-source tools are software tools that are freely available without a commercial license. Many different kinds of open-source tools allow developers and others to do certain things in programming, maintaining technologies or other types of technology tasks.\n<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_open-source_tools\">Techopedia Explains Open-Source Tools<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Open-source tools stand in contrast to tools that are commercially licensed and available to users for a fee. Well-known examples of open-source tools include many of the software products from the Apache Foundation, such as big-data tool Hadoop and related tools. Most of these are freely available, with the licensing held by a user community, instead of a company making a profit from software.\n<\/p>\n<p>The open-source movement has caused controversy in the IT world for many years. There are different philosophies in play, where open-source proponents believe that tools and software applications should be publicly available. Companies that still license and sell software products have a vested interest in keeping this model going. However, in certain instances, open source has made big inroads in consumer communities.\n<\/p>\n<p>One prominent example is the Mozilla Firefox web browser, which has significant share in consumer use around the world. Rather than being a browser bought by a company, or shipped with that company&#8217;s hardware, Mozilla Firefox is a free download browser with its own appeal to the user community. In general, open-source tools reveal a history of developers collaborating on system design without any motive for profit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Open-Source Tools Mean? Open-source tools are software tools that are freely available without a commercial license. Many different kinds of open-source tools allow developers and others to do certain things in programming, maintaining technologies or other types of technology tasks. Techopedia Explains Open-Source Tools Open-source tools stand in contrast to tools that are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[231,225,256,230],"class_list":["post-3104","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-it-business-alignment","definitioncat-cloud-native-development","definitioncat-emerging-technology","definitioncat-privacy-and-compliance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What are Open-Source Tools? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Open-Source Tools and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Open-Source Tools\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Open-Source Tools and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-19T13:03:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Open-Source Tools\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-28T12:20:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-19T13:03:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools\"},\"wordCount\":242,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3295\/open-source-tools\",\"name\":\"What are Open-Source Tools? 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