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Master Program

Open Source Software Development

Swe03

The default assumption in software engineering is that software is developed by a company as a proprietary product, i.e., the company owns the source code and sells (licenses for use of) binary executables. A user or customer who wants changes in the software has to back to the
company for these changes to be realized.

In the _open source_ model of software development, each user not only gets binaries, but also the complete source code of the system, the right to make changes to the code, _and_ to distribute the changed sources. 

Links

   * http://www.gnu.org
   * http://www.opensource.org