I always see people looking specifically for open source software and never knew why. Thanks!
In: Technology
The source mentioned in open source refers to source code, the actual code written by the programmers that the computer will compile and run. Software thus can be open or closed source. Most video games you buy will be closed source, the developers made the game secretly and released the game without the source code being seeable. The code has already been converted to something the computer speaks through compiling, and getting back the original code is extremely difficult. Helps prevent piracy to a degree.
Open source is thus any time the code to the game is intentionally released in full without obfuscation. This is often done for collaborative projects. The game osu! for example is open source. Because of this, open source software is very safe. If it was doing something harmful anyone without technical knowhow could observe the code and find that harmful code.
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