Confused by buzzwords? You’re not alone.
EXPLAINED is a new explainer series for people who work with technology – but don’t want marketing fluff or academic theory.
We break down complex digital topics clearly and practically: what they mean, why they matter, and how they work in the real world.
Open Source Software is software whose source code is publicly available to use, study, modify, and share.
That sounds simple — and it is — but the consequences are anything but.
Open source shapes how software is built, who controls it, how long it lasts, and who gets a say when things change.
FLOSS, FOSS, and why words matter
You’ll see a few acronyms used almost interchangeably: FOSS, FLOSS, or just OSS.
They all point in roughly the same direction, but with slightly different emphasis.
- OSS: Open Source Software
- FOSS: Free and Open Source Software
- FLOSS: Free/Libre and Open Source Software
We tend to prefer FLOSS, because it makes something explicit that often gets lost: free doesn’t mean price.
A side note: Capital Letters and Hyphens?
That depends on who you’re asking! The CERN Open Source Program Office has a nice style guide write up here in favour of hyphens when used as a compound adjective (eg. open-source hardware, open-source software), the Open Source Initiative however recently published an opinion piece arguing it should in fact never be hyphenated. The Microsoft style guide argues for hyphens and lower case (unless being used as part of a pronoun), or you can talk to our CEO who will tell you it should always be capitalised. We’ll let you choose this one…
“The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.” — Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Free as in freedom, not free as in beer
Open source is “free” in the sense of freedom, not cost (but it might be that as well).
The freedom to:
- run the software for any purpose
- understand how it works
- modify it
- share it with others
You can (and often do) pay for open source – for support, hosting, updates, or guarantees. What you don’t lose is your ability to understand the code behind it or leave.
That distinction turns out to be crucial.
How much technology is running on open source?
A lot.
A 2024 Synopsis report showed that 96% of the commercial code bases they sampled contained open source software, and 77% of the code within those code bases was open source. Further research suggests Linux is used by around 60 % of all websites where the OS is known and is the majority of workloads in Microsoft Azure cloud. Measurements also show that open-source web servers like Nginx and Apache make up 70% of the web server landscape.
[insert pretty pie charts]
It’s not because it’s trendy, but because:
- it scales,
- it lasts,
- and it can be trusted by people who need to look under the hood.
Open source isn’t the alternative – for most use cases it’s the default.
If it’s open, how does it stay open?
Open source stays open because of licences. These legally enforce the freedoms that define open-source software and ensure that improvements can’t simply be taken private and locked away.
That legal backbone is what allows open-source projects to outlive companies, products, and even entire technology cycles. Open-source licenses however is a First Principles topic for another day!
But how do businesses make money?
People pay for open-source software because it delivers value, and because someone needs to be accountable when it matters.
Generally speaking, open-source companies don’t sell access to the source code. They sell the things organisations actually need in the real world: professional support, long-term maintenance, security updates, predictable releases, enterprise integrations, and help when something goes wrong at 5pm on a Friday.
Just as importantly, many organisations choose to pay because they want the software to stay open, and to have a product management discussion with the developers behind it. They know that sustainable, well-maintained open source doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when skilled teams are paid to work on it full time.
Anyone can support an open-source deployment. That’s the point. In practice however, organisations choose to pay the people who know the software best and contribute to it every day.
Solutions like Collabora Online follow exactly this model: open-source code, open standards, and commercial services wrapped around them so organisations can rely on the software in production. Customers aren’t buying access or exclusivity – they’re choosing expertise, continuity, and a team they trust to keep the software healthy.
That’s not a contradiction of open source. It’s how it works.
Is open source more secure?
Often, yes – but not magically.
Open source benefits from transparency. Code can be audited, vulnerabilities can be found by anyone, and fixes aren’t limited to a single vendor’s timeline. That doesn’t mean bugs don’t exist; it means they’re harder to hide, and anyone can fix it.
As an added accountability layer, as an engineer, your name is on every commit, in perpetuity – so you’re somewhat more careful!
The trade-off nobody mentions
Open source gives you freedom, but it also expects engagement.
Behind most successful open-source projects are vibrant communities: developers sharing ideas, reviewing code, and improving the software in the open. That energy is one of open source’s greatest strengths. But for many organisations, especially those with compliance, security, or regulatory requirements, relying directly on community development can feel like a leap.
This is where professional open-source companies come in. They act as a bridge between fast-moving global communities and organisations that need stability, accountability, compliance and predictable releases. They package the innovation of the open-source ecosystem into something businesses can confidently deploy and support.
So what’s the point?
Open source isn’t simply about ideology or getting something for nothing.
It’s about building software that can be trusted, understood, improved, and relied upon over time by users, organisations, and entire societies. Without it, you’re relying on trust you can’t verify.
If you’re interested in taking back control of your documents, contact us today.
