Proprietary software

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Proprietary software

Proprietary software is a term coined by advocates of the free software movement

Free software movement

The free software movement is a social movement which aims to promote user's rights to access and modify software. The alternative terms for free software "libre software", "open source", and "FOSS" are associated with the free software movement....
to describe computer software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, Algorithm and Software documentation that perform some tasks on a computer system....
which is the legal property of one party. The terms of use for other parties is defined by contracts or licensing agreements. These terms may include various privileges to share, alter, dissemble, and use the software and its code.

usive legal rights to software by a proprietor contradict the kinds of freedom which are essential for free software.

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Encyclopedia

Proprietary software is a term coined by advocates of the free software movement

Free software movement

Computer software

Literal and legal meanings

Exclusive legal rights to software by a proprietor contradict the kinds of freedom which are essential for free software. However, even software which is not proprietary, for example public domain

Public domain

File:PD-icon.svgThe public domain is a range of abstract materials?commonly referred to as intellectual property?which are not owned or controlled by anyone....
software and software under a permissive licence, does not comply with the definition of free software, if the source code of that software is not available. Proprietary software includes freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee. Freeware is different from shareware; the latter obliges the user to pay ....
and shareware

Shareware

The term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to copyrighted commercial software that is distributed without payment on a trial basis and is limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience....
.

The free software movement's founder Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman

Richard Matthew Stallman , often abbreviated "rms","'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman...
sometimes uses the term "user-subjugating software" to describe proprietary software, while Eben Moglen

Eben Moglen

Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation....
sometimes talks of "unfree software". The term "non-free" is often used by Debian

Debian

Debian GNU/Linux is one of the most popular and influential computer operating systems composed of free software and open source software....
developers to describe any software whose licence does not comply with Debian Free Software Guidelines

Debian Free Software Guidelines

The Debian Free Software Guidelines is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Debian....
, and they use "proprietary software" specifically for non-free software that provides no source code. The Open Source Initiative

Open Source Initiative

The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open-source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S....
prefers the term "closed source software".

Software distributions considered as proprietary may in fact incorporate a "mixed source" model including both free and non-free software in the same distribution. Most if not all so-called proprietary UNIX

Unix

Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of American Telephone & Telegraph employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna....
distributions are mixed source software, bundling open source components like BIND

BIND

BIND is the most commonly used Domain Name System server on the Internet, especially on Unix-like systems, where it is a de facto standardization....
, Sendmail

Sendmail

Sendmail is a mail transfer agent that supports many kinds of mail transfer and delivery including the overwhelmingly popular SMTP.A descendant of delivermail program written by Eric Allman, Sendmail is a well-known project of the free and open source software and Unix communities, and is distributed both as free software and propriet...
, X Window System

X Window System

The X Window System is a computing software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface for networked computers. It implements the X Window System protocols and architecture and provides windowing system on raster graphics Visual display units and manages Keyboard and pointing device control functions....
, DHCP, and others along with a purely proprietary kernel and system utilities.

For some free software

Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
, the same laws used by proprietary software are used to preserve the rights to use, copy and modify the software. This technique is called copyleft

Copyleft

File:Copyleft.svgCopyleft is a Word play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions....
.

Examples

Well known examples of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ....
, RealPlayer

RealPlayer

RealPlayer is a Proprietary software cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of Proprietary format RealAudio and RealVideo formats....
, iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a Proprietary software digital media media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone....
, Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a Graphics software developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current and primary Market dominance for commercial Raster graphics and manipulation, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems....
, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
, WinZip

WinZip

WinZip is a proprietary file archiver for Microsoft Windows, developed by WinZip Computing . It natively uses the PKZIP format but also has various levels of support for other List of archive formats....
and some versions of Unix

Unix

Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of American Telephone & Telegraph employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna....
.

Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL

MySQL

MySQL is a relational database management system which has more than 11 million installations. The program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases....
, Sendmail

Sendmail

Secure Shell

Secure Shell or SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices. Used primarily on Linux and Unix based systems to access shell accounts, SSH was designed as a replacement for TELNET and other Computer security remote Shell s, which send information, notably passwords, in...
. The original copyright holders for a work of free software, even copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software (i.e. software distributed under a permissive free software licence or released to the public domain) allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions.

Some proprietary software comes with source code or provides offers to the source code. Users are free to use and even study and modify the software in these cases, but are restricted by either licences or non-disclosure agreement

Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a law contract between at least two party that outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain pur...
s from redistributing modifications or sharing the software. Examples include Pine

Pine (e-mail client)

Pine is a freeware, text-based e-mail client developed at the University of Washington. Source code was available for only the Unix version under a license written by the University of Washington....
, the Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
Shared source

Shared source

Shared Source is Microsoft's framework for sharing computer program source code with third parties. Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative, launched in May 2007, includes a spectrum of technologies and licenses....
licence program, and certain proprietary implementations of ssh.

Shareware, like freeware, is proprietary software available at zero price, but differs in that it is free only for a trial period, after which some restriction is imposed or it is completely disabled. Proprietary software which is no longer marketed by its owner and is used without permission by users is called abandonware

Abandonware

Abandonware refers to computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. While the term has been applied largely to older games, other classes of software are sometimes described as such....
and may include source code. Some abandonware has its source code placed in the public domain either by its author or copyright holder and is therefore free software, not proprietary software.

For certain proprietary software where the user can access source code, such as online applications (such as Internet forum software) or Java applications (where the source can be obtained by decompiling), some developers will obfuscate

Obfuscated code

Obfuscated code is source code in a computer programming language that has been made difficult to understand. Programmers may deliberately obfuscate code to conceal its purpose, to deter reverse engineering, or as a puzzle or recreational challenge for readers....
the source code in order to make it difficult for users to obtain the original code.

Proprietary software

Literal and legal meanings

Examples

See also