Open-source operating systems, who owns it?

More than couple of dozens of open-source software (also called free software or operating systems) is available for anyone to use or expand. Even though it is called free software not all are free and some require licensing. Linux is one of open-source software that was developed early on and the now infamous Android is based on Linux Kernel. Android brought touchscreen technology to whole new stratosphere. Freely distributed Linux operating system runs on number of hardware platforms including PCs, Macs and many others. Linux is extremely popular alternative to some proprietory operating systems. Dozens of programmers contribute to improve the Linux open-source operating system and therefore, no one company owns it. Red Hat successfully benefitted from the open-source operating system.

Open-source is a software or program where source code is freely available to anyone for use, modification and other purposes. Those programmers, who are not concerned with the ownership, contribute heavily to develop many of the available open-source programs. Since the source code is readily available, it helps tremendously to develop many forms of software and applications. It prevents discrimination against any group or individual, field of study or endeavor which encourages participation of many programmers.