Proprietary
From Freepedia
Proprietary indicates that a party exercises private ownership, control or use over an item of property, usually to the exclusion of other parties.
Where a party holds or claims proprietary interests in relation to certain types of property (eg. a creative literary work, or software), that property may also be the subject of intellectual property law (eg. copyright or patents).
Proprietary software
See main article: Proprietary software
Software which is privately owned or controlled is known as proprietary software. However, the extent to which proprietary rights can be claimed or maintained in relation to software is a matter of considerable controversy (see software patent debate).
Proprietary software is not free software or open source software as end-users generally do not have the ability to:
- run the software for any purpose
- study and modify the software
- copy the software and provide it to third parties
- make and release improvements to the software
Etymology
The word proprietary comes from the French propriétaire, from the Latin proprietarius. Compare with the Latin proprietas (property), and proprius (ownership).
