IT Glossary
What is Open Source?
Software whose source code is public: anyone may study, use, modify and share it — the invisible foundation of the modern internet.
"If it's free, who pays for it?" is the first sensible question about open source, and the answer matured decades ago. An overwhelming share of the infrastructure your business runs on — web servers, the Linux beneath every cloud, WordPress, the languages and libraries inside all modern software — is open source: publicly available code under licenses letting anyone use, study, modify and redistribute it. Development is funded by the corporations that depend on those projects (Google, Microsoft and Amazon employ armies of contributors), by foundations, and by companies selling services on top of the free software — support, hosting, enterprise features. For a buyer, the translation is concrete: zero license costs across whole categories of software, from content management to business intelligence; no vendor captivity, since public code means any competent team can take over, host and modify it, keeping your negotiating position intact; verifiable transparency, which is why serious cryptography is open by definition; and longevity independent of any single company's fate. The hygiene notes belong next to the enthusiasm: a free license does not mean free operation (implementation, hosting and maintenance still cost — usually less than commercial licensing, but never zero); project health matters, so check activity, community and backing before betting on one; and copyleft licenses have teeth precisely when you build commercial products on that code, making a license audit standard due diligence rather than paranoia.
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Why it matters for your business
Whole categories without license fees
CMS, automation, BI, databases — mature open source alternatives cut entire lines from the license budget, not percentages.
No forced marriages with vendors
Public code can be taken over, hosted and modified by anyone — a supplier who overcharges or disappears cannot take the software with them.
Quality hardened in the open
Major projects are used and inspected by millions — vulnerabilities get found and fixed publicly instead of rotting in secret.
Frequently asked questions
If it's free, who is accountable when it breaks?
Nobody, per the license — the software comes "as is" — and exactly there sits the services market: commercial support from the companies around big projects, maintenance contracts with your local IT provider, or managed offerings where an operator hosts and guarantees the open software under an SLA. For critical systems, open code plus a support contract is often the ideal: freedom plus someone accountable.
Is open source secure enough for company data?
Mature projects — yes, often more audited than closed alternatives: thousands of eyes on the code, vulnerabilities disclosed and fixed transparently. The real risk is operational and identical to any software: outdated versions and careless configuration. Buyer checks: project activity, historical response speed to vulnerabilities, and who exactly will keep it updated at your company.
Can we build our commercial product on open source components and sell it?
Usually yes — most licenses (MIT, Apache, BSD) explicitly allow commercial use with no practical obligations; the caution goes to the copyleft family: GPL requires distributed software that includes it to be GPL as well, and AGPL extends that duty to services offered over a network. A professional development vendor audits dependency licenses as a matter of course — for products with stakes, request it explicitly in the deliverables.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247