Word.ws English Dictionary

sourceware

sourceware noun: a precursor of open source software.

Noun

sourceware (uncountable)

  1. (dated) A precursor of open source software.
    • And last of the “open software”, a rarer implementation is sourceware. A variation of freedomware, sourceware offers “open source” code with “closed (proprietary) standards”.2005, Sys Admin: The Journal for UNIX System Administrators, page 48
    • Because McVoy was trying to avoid recourse to the “customer solution” of NT, that left the programmers' solution: free software, or “sourceware,” as he termed it.2009, Glyn Moody, Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Hachette UK, →ISBN

Origin of sourceware

From source + -ware.

Questions about sourceware

What does sourceware mean?
Sourceware means a precursor of open source software.
What part of speech is sourceware?
Sourceware is a noun.

Words near sourceware in the dictionary

  1. sourcerer
  2. sourcerers
  3. sourcers
  4. sources
  5. sourceward
  6. sourceware
  7. sourcework
  8. sourcing
  9. sourcings
  10. sourcream
  11. sourcrout

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sourceware (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sourceware.wav.

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