This content was published by Andrew Tomazos and written by several hundred members of the former Internet Knowledge Base project.

Open Source Software and Communities

When a program is created, the recipe for making it is called its source code.

Some software developers keep the recipe secret so that they can keep some control of the software and so that competition can't see how it works.

Other developers make their source code available for everyone to see.

Still others encourage and organize communities of volunteers that actually help write the source code.

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