Software Licensing: Proprietary and Free and Open-Source Licenses – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Proprietary software consists of software that is licensed by the copyright holder under very specific conditions. In general, you can use the software, but you are not allowed to modify the software or distribute it to others.

The original source code for the software is not available, which means you can’t see the actual code written by the programmers. Proprietary software is, therefore, also referred to as closed-source software. This is done on purpose to protect the intellectual property invested in software development. If the source code were released, even with copyright restrictions, competitors could benefit from using this code.

Many proprietary software applications are also commercial, meaning that you have to pay for a license. However, many other proprietary software applications are free. The fact that software is free does not mean it is not proprietary.