What is Open source? What does it mean?

Open source not fully means that they are free there are many open source software’s which are paid like RHEL business edition for which you have to sell some bucks out of your pocket But the majority of open source software’s are free.

Along with this you can get the source code of all open source software’s legally for free & thus if you are a good developer you can make improvement in the source code thus making the software better & posting it to the original developer of the software & if they found it really good they may published those updates in the next release of the software & even if they can’t you can yourself use the modified version legally.

Nowadays Most of the time the companies release free versions of their software for basic home users which have limited features but if you have to buy a business version for all feature you have to pay a huge amount from your pocket, & even have to pay to upgrade or update it most of the time, What the source code of the program is not made public by these money minded companies so they have all the charge of software maintenance in their hand.

Open Source Doesn't necessarily mean Free. It just means that you can see the source code, Edit it and if you want , develop a new program from it. If you want you can choose not to give it for Free.you can set a price and sell it.

Google is the location of the source code and then you can download it via tools.

Open source means you have access to the source code of the software in question.

One can use the same source code, modify it and create software.

Open source doesn't means free software, It means the Code of the software seen by any one and if anyone knows the programming he can make changes to it.