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Proprietary software is computer software with restrictions on copying and modifying placed on it by the creator or distributor. These restrictions are enforced by either legal or technical means, and sometimes by both. The most common form of technical enforcement is by releasing only machine-readable programs to users and withholding the human-readable source code. Means of legal enforcement can involve software licensing, copyright protection, and patent protection.

Closed source is a term for software whose license does not meet the definition of open source software. Generally, it means only the binaries of a computer program are distributed and the license provides no access to the program's source code, rendering modifications to the software technically impossible for practical purposes. The source code of such programs is usually regarded as a trade secret of the company. Access to source code by third parties commonly requires the party to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Details

Exclusive legal rights to software by a proprietor are not required for software to be proprietary, since public domain software and software under a permissive license can become proprietary software by distributing compiled versions of the program without making the source code available. Proprietary software's restrictions make it an antonym of free software. For free software, the same laws used by proprietary software are used to preserve the freedoms to use, copy and modify the software. Proprietary software includes freeware and shareware. It can be commercial software, but public domain and all other free software can also be sold for a price and be used for commercial purposes.

According to the Free Software Foundation (FSF), proprietary software is any software that does not meet its definitions of free software. The term's literal legal meaning covers software that has an owner who exercises control over what users can do with it. FSF's GNU General Public License asserts that the restrictions of free software offer computer users freedom while the restrictions of other software benefit only the owner and are unethical.

Proponents of proprietary software, like Microsoft, argue that innovation is driven more quickly when it is lucrative. They claim that the best way to ensure this motivation is to tie revenue to innovation. The proprietor uses a temporary monopoly with copyright and sometimes software patents that makes the software more expensive. A dependency on future versions and upgrades can make the monopoly permanent without the emergence of a competing software package, a situation termed "vendor lock-in". Proprietary software is said to create greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues.

A variety of activation or licence management systems are emerging in proprietary software that prevent copyright infringement and determine how the software is used. If the proprietor ceases to exist or for any other reason does not provide keys for activation or to unlock discontinued products, legitimate users can be unable to re-activate existing software or use other hardware.

If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package can be left at a disadvantage and have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems. Companies also end their support for a product for business and organizational planning purposes. The consequence is also tied to enticing more to upgrade and pay for newer versions.

The practice is legal in most countries unless restricted by copyright or license. Some proponents of free software consider the practice immoral, and it was the impetus for the creation of "copyleft" licenses.

Nomenclature

The phrase "closed source" is ambiguous because it implies licensing where the source code to a program is unavailable. However, if taken as being an antonym to open source, it refers to software that does not meet the Open Source Definition, which is a subtly different meaning.

Microsoft's Shared source is an example of licensing where the source code is made available but not under an open-source license. If Closed source is interpreted as referring to software that does not meet the Open Source Definition, then Shared source is an example of Closed source licensing. However, if it is interpreted as simply referring to programs where the source code is not available, this isn't the case.

The term non-free software is used interchangeably, roughly as often by the free software movement. FSF founder Richard Stallman sometimes uses the term "user subjugating software", while Eben Moglen sometimes talks of "unfree software". The term "non-free" is often used by Debian developers to describe any software whose license does not comply with Debian Free Software Guidelines, and use "proprietary software" specifically for non-free software that provide no source code. The Open Source Initiative prefers the term "closed source software". Proprietary software vendors usually refer to their own software as commercial software.

"Software hoarding" is a pejorative term for the act of keeping software proprietary coined by Richard Stallman in 1984 as a derisive critique of Symbolics, a company he actively opposed. While employed at MIT, Stallman had worked on a Lisp interpreter as part of the university's Lisp machine project. An agreement between MIT and Symbolics allowed Symbolics to use the code, and required the company to let the university review changes to it, but did not give the university rights to the changes themselves.

Encumbered code

When a part of source or binary code used in an open source software is closed-source or patented (it is often the case for device drivers, for example), it is referred as encumbered code. Examples of such code are:

• Some device drivers used in open-sourced operating systems.
• Parts that were bought by the primary author from the third parties under non-free conditions at the time, when this author was not expecting to release the project as free software. This happened with Java.

Semi-free software

Semi-free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, is software that is not free software, but comes with permission for individuals to use, copy, distribute, and modify (including distribution of modified versions) only for non-profit purposes. (Such software is also not open source according to the definition of the Open Source Initiative.)

PGP, Scilab, and Angband are examples of semi-free programs. The Free Software Foundation classifies semi-free software as non-free software, but draws a distinction between semi-free software and proprietary software.

Examples

Well known examples of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows, RealPlayer, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Mac OS X (although the underlying Darwin system is free software), WinZip and some versions of Unix.

Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL, Sendmail and ssh. 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, or software distributed under a permissive free software licence, 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 licenses or non-disclosure agreements from redistributing modifications or sharing the software. Examples include Pine, the Microsoft Shared source license program, certain proprietary implementations of ssh and MINIX.

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 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.

See also

• Commercial software
• Glossary of legal terms in computer technology
• Proprietary hardware
• Free software
• Glossary of legal terms in technology
• Open source
• Open source vs. closed source

References

1. "The GNU Project". Free Software Foundation. 2005. Retrieved 2006-06-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
2. "The Commercial Software Model". Microsoft. 2001. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. "In defense of proprietary software". ZDNet. 2003. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
4. "Open Source Versus Commercial Software: Why Proprietary Software is Here to Stay". Sams Publishing. 2005. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
5. "What happens when a proprietary software company dies?". NewsForge. 2003. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
6. "Microsoft Turns Up The Heat On Windows 2000 Users". InformationWeek. 2006. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
7. Semi-free software, definition by the Free Software Foundation

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• Software distribution
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