This is a list of proprietary source-available software, which has available source code, but is not classified as free software or open-source software. In some cases, this type of software is originally sold and released without the source code, and the source code becomes available later. Sometimes, the source code is released under a liberal software license at its end of life as abandonware. This type of software can also have its source code leaked or reverse engineered.

While such software often later becomes open source software or public domain, other constructs and software licenses exist, for instance shared source or creative commons licenses.[1][2] If the source code is given out without specified license or public domain waiver it has legally to be considered as still proprietary due to the Berne Convention.

For a list of video game software with available source code, see List of commercial video games with available source code. For specifically formerly proprietary software which is now free software, see List of formerly proprietary software.

Title Original author Original release Source code availability OpenSource compatible Freeware (data and software) Complete Free software (DFSG compatible) New license Notes
Amazon Lumberyard Amazon 2002 2016 No Yes No proprietary license On 16 August 2017, the source code of the game engine was made freely available under proprietary license terms via GitHub.[3][4]
Apple DOS Apple Inc. 1986 2015 No No No non-commercial license The Apple DOS source code was released by the Computer History Museum[5] after Paul Laughton, the creator of the code, donated it.[6]
Photoshop 1.0.1[7] Adobe Systems Inc. 1990 February 2013[8] No  ? No Computer History Museum Software License (non-commercial license)[7] Adobe Systems Inc. made the source code of the 1990 version 1.0.1 of Photoshop available to the Computer History Museum. Includes all the code with the exception of the MacApp applications library which was licensed from Apple.
Bitstream Vera (font) Bitstream Inc. Unknown 2003  ? Yes (non-commercial) No (can't be sold by itself) custom non-commercial Through the efforts of Bitstream and the GNOME Foundation
Build Ken Silverman 1995 2000 No Yes No own non-commercial license
Commodore 64 firmware Commodore International 1982 2012 No No No Around 2012 Dennis Jarvis, ex-Commodore engineer, made material and source code of the development history of the C64 available.[9] Later the source code was cleaned up, reformated and made build-able again in a GitHub projects by enthusiasts.[10]
Call to Power II Activision 2000 2003 No No No own non-commercial license[11] Source code was handed to the community to allow them self-support.[12][13]
CuneiForm Cognitive Technologies 1993 2008  ?  ?  ? BSD Optical character recognition software
Deluxe Paint I (1986) Electronic Arts 1996 2015 No Yes No non-commercial license Source code of an early version released by Electronic Arts in 2015.[14]
Duke Nukem 3D 3D Realms 1996 2003 Yes No No GPL-2.0-or-later Game code only, no data, no engine.
Doom id Software 1993 1997 Yes No No id software license[15]/later GPLv2+ Code only. Originally released under a restrictive license in 1997, in 1999 re-licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later.
DR-DOS/Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 Caldera (company) 1976 May 1997  ?  ?  ? Caldera's OpenDOS End-User License Agreement[16] The Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 source code was a base for the DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project in 2002.[17]
Furby David Hampton 1998 August 2018  ?  ?  ? Public Domain (?) In August 2018, after contacting the US patent office, a PDF scan of the toy's assembler language firmware from the patent's appendix became available on the internet.[18][19] Later it was archived by the Internet Archive,[20] and then manually corrected and transcribed to assemble-able code again by an enthusiast.[21]
FPS Creator Classic The Game Creators 1999 (?) February 2016 No Yes No undefined In February 2016 authors decided to release "FPS Creator" as "FPS Creator Classic" source available (no defined license) with many model packs on github.com.[22][23]
Helix (multimedia project)[24][25] RealNetworks 2002  ? Yes No RealNetworks Community Source License The Helix Community is an open collaborative effort to develop and extend the Helix DNA platform.[26]
HoverRace GrokkSoft 1996 2006  ? No No originally time limited license / later non-commercial GrokkSoft HoverRace SourceCode License.[27]
Jump 'n Bump Brainchild Design 1998 1999  ? Yes No Emailware[28] Source code released under an emailware license.
Java Sun Microsystems 1995 1998 No Yes No Sun Community Source License In 1998 Sun Microsystems released much of Java under the terms of the Sun Community Source License.[29]
MacPaint Apple Inc. 1984 2010 No Yes No non-commercial license[30] MacPaint 1.3's source code (written in a combination of Assembly and Pascal) is available through the Computer History Museum, along with the QuickDraw source code.[31]
Marathon 2: Durandal Bungie 1995 2000 Yes No No GPL-3.0-or-later The code was released under the GPL-2.0-or-later, then GPL-3.0-or-later, while the data is still proprietary. Now known as Aleph One
Mega (service) Mega Limited 201? 2017 No No No MEGA Limited Code Review License Mega Limited released the source code to their client-side software around 28 January 2017 under an own license on github.com.[32][33]
MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 Microsoft 1982 2018 Yes Yes Yes MIT On 25 March 2014 Microsoft made the code to MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 available to the public under a Microsoft Research License for educational purposes.[34][35] In 2018 they relicensed them under MIT license.[36]
Microsoft Word for Windows version 1.1a Microsoft 1991 2014 No Yes No Microsoft Research License (non-commercial license) Microsoft made the source code of the 1991 version of Word available to the Computer History Museum and to the public for educational purposes.[37][38]
MidasWWW Tony Johnson and Chung Huynh 1992 2015  ? Yes  ? unspecified 16 November 1992 sources were made available in June 2015 at GitHub without specified license.[39][40]
NASTRAN NASA 1960 2001  ?  ?  ? own license In 2001 the NASA released with the "NASA Classics" package also the Finite Element Analysis simulator's source code to the public for free.[41][42][43]
NCSA Mosaic 2.7 NCSA 1993 March 2010[44]  ? Yes  ? own license[45] first graphical browser
NetBeans 1997 October 2007 Yes Yes No Apache-2.0 An integrated development environment (IDE) for Java and other programming languages
Netscape Enterprise Server Sun Microsystems January 2009  ?  ? BSD Sun Microsystems open sourced it.[46]
PhysX Nvidia 2004 2015 Yes Yes Yes 3-clause BSD license (Proprietary until 2018 except for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch)[47] At GDC 2015, Nvidia made the PhysX' source code available on GitHub, but requires registration on developer.nvidia.com and EULA signing.[48]

Since December 2018, Nvidia relicensed[47] the PhysX' source code under the 3-clause BSD license for Apple iOS, macOS, Google Android ARM, Linux, and Microsoft Windows

Pine (email client) 1989 1996  ?  ?  ? own license[49] Before 1996 under BSD license, it was switched to a proprietary license while still having the source code available.[50]
Quake id Software 1996 1999 Yes No No GPL-2.0-or-later The map sources were also released under the GPL in 2006.
Rise of the Triad 3D Realms 1994 2002 Yes No No GPL-2.0-or-later Only the code was released under the GPL-2.0-or-later.
Stellar Frontier Stardock 1997 2008[51] No Yes No Stardock Shared Source Stellar Frontier License (non-commercial license)[52] Stellar Frontier is a multiplayer space strategy/shooter game made by Doug Hendrix in 1995 and published by Stardock. Stardock closed the master server on 4 August 2006, ceasing official support for multiplayer mode but released the source code under a shared source license in 2008.
Swiss Post E-Voting System Scytl unknown 2021[53] No No No own license The software was originally developed by Scytl, but purchased by Swiss Post in 2020.[54] Some parts of the system are released under an open source license, but the main part is not.
Symbian Nokia 1997 (as Psion EPOC32)[55] 2010[56][57] Yes Yes No EPL / Nokia Symbian License[58]
Take 2 Cellsoft / Geert Vergauwe  ? 2015 ? Yes ? "open source freeware" The popular animation software for the Amiga was gifted in 2015 to the community by the original developer, including the 68k assembly source code.[59][60]
Technicolor TC72xx chipset cable modem firmware/eCos Technicolor 2008 2015 Yes Yes  ? GPLv2, lGPL, eCos 2.0 license[61] Released on GitHub on 30. November 2015.[62][63]
v8 Unix, v9, v10 Unix Heritage Society and Alcatel-Lucent 1985 2017 No Yes No non-copyright enforcement grant on non-commercial usage In 2017, Unix Heritage Society and Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., on behalf of itself and Nokia Bell Laboratories, released v8, v9, v10 under the condition:[64] "will not assert its copyright rights with respect to any non-commercial copying, distribution, performance, display or creation of derivative works of Research Unix®1 Editions 8, 9, and 10".
Unrar Rarlabs 1995 2000 No Yes No own unrar license[65] Unrar source code was released by Eugene Roshal/RARlabs sometime in 2000. A GPL fork of older codebase exists.[66]
Warzone 2100 Pumpkin Studios/Eidos Interactive March 1999 December 2004 Yes Yes (only movies not)[67] Yes (GPL-2.0-or-later, only movies not)[67] GPL-2.0-or-later Video game by Eidos Interactive
Watcom C compiler Watcom 1988 2003 Yes Yes No Sybase Open Watcom Public License Released as Open Watcom, under a license which is considered free by the OSI[68] but not by the FSF. The FSF has problems with the license as it demands more freedom than the GPL by requiring the release of source code also in the case of private use.[69]
Xerox Alto Computer History Museum 1975 2014 No Yes No own non-commercial license On 21 October 2014, Xerox Alto's source code and other resources were released from the Computer History Museum.[70]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Shared Source, Eventual Source, and Other Licensing Models – Alternatives to Open Source Archived 8 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine, by Lawrence Rosen (2004)
  2. ↑ CHAPTER 5 Non-Open Source Licenses Archived 22 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing – By Andrew M. St. Laurent, August 2004
  3. ↑ Lumberyard & Amazon GameLift: Now Available – Lumberyard on GitHub Archived 4 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine by Todd Gilbertsen on 15 August 2017
  4. ↑ license Archived 16 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine on github.com/aws/Lumberyard
  5. ↑ Shustek, Len (12 November 2013). "Apple II DOS source code". computerhistory.org. Archived from the original on 29 November 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  6. ↑ "Apple II's 35-year-old operating system is now open to the public". engadget.com. 13 November 2013. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  7. 1 2 "Adobe Photoshop Source Code". Archived from the original on 7 May 2014.
  8. ↑ Bishop, Bryan (14 February 2013). "Adobe releases original Photoshop source code for nostalgic developers". theverge.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  9. ↑ Dennis Jarvis Page Archived 15 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine on 6502.org
  10. ↑ c64rom Archived 17 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine on github.com/mist64
  11. ↑ "Apolyton Civilization Site – Call to Power II Source Code End User License Agreement". Apolyton Civilization Site. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012.
  12. ↑ Bell, John (1 October 2009). "Opening the Source of Art". Technology Innovation Management Review. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2012. [...]that no further patches to the title would be forthcoming. The community was predictably upset. Instead of giving up on the game, users decided that if Activision wasn't going to fix the bugs, they would. They wanted to save the game by getting Activision to open the source so it could be kept alive beyond the point where Activision lost interest. With some help from members of the development team that were active on fan forums, they were eventually able to convince Activision to release Call to Power II's source code in October of 2003.
  13. ↑ "Apolyton CTP2 News Archive". Archived from the original on 2 March 2005.
  14. ↑ Shustek, Len (12 November 2013). "Electronic Arts DeluxePaint Early Source Code". computerhistory.org. Archived from the original on 23 July 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  15. ↑ "Updated Doom user license / EULA? – Doomworld Forums". Archived from the original on 26 August 2014.
  16. ↑ license.txt
  17. ↑ Welcome to the DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project! Archived 16 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine on drdosprojects.de
  18. ↑ take-a-look-inside-the-furbys-source-code Archived 9 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine on thenextweb.com (2018-08-13)
  19. ↑ furbysource.pdf Archived 9 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine on seanriddle.com
  20. ↑ furby-source on the Internet Archive
  21. ↑ furby-source Archived 9 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine on GitHub
  22. ↑ FPS Creator Classic Open Source Archived 11 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine on thegamecreators.com
  23. ↑ FPS-Creator-Classic Archived 20 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine on github.com/LeeBamberTGC
  24. ↑ ZDNet UK (5 December 2002) RealNetworks opens more Helix DNA Archived 25 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved on 2 August 2009
  25. ↑ ZDNet UK (6 August 2003) RealNetworks releases player code for Linux Archived 22 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved on 2 August 2009
  26. ↑ Helix Community About Helix Community, Retrieved on 5 August 2009
  27. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 October 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  28. ↑ Jump 'n Bump Archived 6 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine readme.txt JUMP 'N BUMP by Brainchild Design in 1998 Jump 'n Bump is e-mailware. That means you're supposed to send us an e-mail. Write for example where you're from and what you thought about this game. If you do that, you will greatly encourage us to make more games for you!
  29. ↑ Loukides, Mike (1 March 1999). "Some Thoughts on the Sun Community Source License". O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
  30. ↑ "MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code". Computer History Museum. 20 July 2010. Archived from the original on 22 August 2012.
  31. ↑ Hesseldahl, Erik (20 July 2010). "Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum". businessweek.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2012.
  32. ↑ MEGA source code Archived 28 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine on hackernews.com
  33. ↑ meganz Archived 29 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine on github.com
  34. ↑ TechNet Blogs, Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public Archived 28 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  35. ↑ Phipps, Simon (26 March 2014). "Psych! Microsoft didn't really open-source MS-DOS". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  36. ↑ Daws, Ryan (1 October 2018). "Microsoft open sources MS-DOS (for real this time!)". Developer Tech News. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  37. ↑ Levin, Roy (25 March 2014). "Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public". Official Microsoft Blog. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  38. ↑ Shustek, Len (24 March 2014). "Microsoft Word for Windows Version 1.1a Source Code". Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  39. ↑ Connolly, Dan (13 June 2015). "source to MidasWWW from 1992". World Wide Web Consortium. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  40. ↑ midasWWW Archived 11 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine at github
  41. ↑ NASA Releases Classic Software To Public Domain on newsbytes.com by Susan M (25 October 2001)
  42. ↑ nasa-releases-classic-software-to-public-domain Archived 3 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine on slashdot.com (2001)
  43. ↑ NTTC, OSC Celebrate Space Agency's Birthday, Launch "NASA CLASSICS" Software Apps to Commercial Markets Archived 16 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine on openchannelsoftware.com (2001)
  44. ↑ Browse the Web as it Looked in 1993 Archived 21 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine By Michael Calore
  45. ↑ Dipert, Alan (8 March 2010). "ncsa-mosaic/COPYRIGHT". GitHub. Archived from the original on 18 April 2010. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  46. ↑ Virkki, Jyri (13 January 2009). "Announcing Open Source Web Server". sun.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  47. 1 2 "PhysX SDK 4.0 Available Now". Nvidia. Archived from the original on 3 December 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  48. ↑ "PhysX on GitHub". Nvidia. Archived from the original on 23 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  49. ↑ "Linux Today - Chris Allegretta: When Non-Free is "Free Enough"". Archived from the original on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2013. Chris Allegretta: When Non-Free is "Free Enough"
  50. ↑ "Re: DFSG vs Pine's legal notices: where exactly is the gotcha?". lists.debian.org. Archived from the original on 2 June 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  51. ↑ stellarfrontier.net/ Archived 18 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine "So when the game's source code was released by Stardock in 2008 under a shared source license, a few passionate pilots improved the game, fixed the bugs and patched security holes, and established a user-driven renaissance for one of the greatest games ever to grace the PC."
  52. ↑ stellar_frontier_source_eula.txt STARDOCK SHARED SOURCE STELLAR FRONTIER LICENSE
  53. ↑ Archived 2 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine "Swiss Post is publishing the source code of its future e-voting system today, while also launching an accompanying public bug bounty programme. This means that experts from all over the world can test the system, including by simulating voting procedures, and can report any vulnerabilities they identify."
  54. ↑ Archived 26 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine "In the autumn of 2019, Swiss Post decided to continue developing the e-voting system for Switzerland independently. Since then, it has acquired the rights to the e-voting source code from its former technology partner, Scytl. Swiss Post will publish the new, enhanced source code."
  55. ↑ "infoSync Interviews Nokia Nseries Executive". Infosyncworld.com. 24 June 2010. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  56. ↑ Symbian Foundation (4 February 2010), Symbian Completes Biggest Open Source Migration Project Ever, archived from the original on 7 February 2010, retrieved 7 February 2010
  57. ↑ Menezes, Gary. (11 September 2010) Symbian OS, Now Fully Open Source Archived 11 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Watblog.com. Retrieved on 25 September 2011.
  58. ↑ "Not Open Source, just Open for Business". symbian.nokia.com. 4 April 2011. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  59. ↑ Take 2 Animation software gifted to the Amiga Community Archived 17 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine on amiga.org (September 2015)
  60. ↑ Take 2 Animation for the Amiga Computer Archived 6 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine by Dan Schallock (2015)
  61. ↑ cable gateways Archived 6 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine on technicolor.com
  62. ↑ A Popular European Cable Modem Is Now Open-Source Archived 16 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine by Michael Larabel on Phoronix (9. December 2015)
  63. ↑ tch-opensrc Archived 17 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine on GitHub.com
  64. ↑ Samizdat no more: Old Unix source code opened for study Archived 30 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine by Richard Chirgwin on register.com (30 March 2017)
  65. ↑ "Licensing:Unrar – FedoraProject". Archived from the original on 6 January 2015.
  66. ↑ "Home of unrarlib – UniquE RAR File Library – License". Archived from the original on 13 July 2014.
  67. 1 2 "Warzone 2100 Content License". Archived from the original on 6 January 2015.
  68. ↑ "SPDX License List | Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX)". spdx.org. Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  69. ↑ "Various Licenses and Comments about Them – Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0 (#Watcom)". gnu.org. Archived from the original on 24 July 2010. Retrieved 23 December 2015. This is not a free software license. It requires you to publish the source code publicly whenever you "Deploy" the covered software, and "Deploy" is defined to include many kinds of private use.
  70. ↑ McJones, Paul (21 October 2014). "Xerox Alto Source Code – The roots of the modern personal computer". Software Gems: The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series. Computer History Museum. Archived from the original on 2 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015. With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use only, snapshots of Alto source code, executables, documentation, font files, and other files from 1975 to 1987.

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