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Proprietary Open Source

"Open Source" is a meaningless marketing phrase, but it did have a definition based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines.


Today it is used as a bait-and-switch way to promote non-free software, so here is a list of examples.

Adobe Acrobat (non-free software)

  • used by: Linux Foundation
  • promoted by:


  • macOS (non-free software)

  • used by: Linux Foundation Executive Director, Linux Foundation Web developer(s)
  • promoted by:


  • Microsoft Github (non-free software)

  • used by: Google, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, GNU Project, FreeBSD, Canonical, Python Foundation, Mozilla, NPM
  • promoted by: Google


  • Windows (non-free software)

  • used by:
  • promoted by: Canonical, ZDNet


  • Zoom (non-free software)

  • used by: Linux Foundation
  • promoted by: