Nonproprietary Software

What Does Nonproprietary Software Mean?

Nonproprietary software is software that has no patent or copyright conditions associated with it. Nonproprietary software is publicly available software that can be freely installed and used. It also provides complete access to its source code.

Techopedia Explains Nonproprietary Software

Nonproprietary software is any software that has no legal implications surrounding its use. Typically, nonproprietary software is free to use, although a fee may be appplied for commercial use. It is distributed under GNU General Public License (GPL), giving end-users/organizations the liberty to copy, share and edit the software.

Most nonproprietary software is open source, which means that the end-user/organization can review and edit the source code and customize it according to their requirements.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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