Proprietary software, known as non-free software or closed-source software, is computer software for which the software's publisher or another person reserves some licensing rights to use, modify, share modifications, or share the software, restricting user freedom with the software they lease.
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Service and all software available were usually supplied by manufacturers without separate charge until 1969.
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In 1983, binary Proprietary software became copyrightable in the United States as well by the Apple vs Franklin law decision, before which only source code was copyrightable.
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Some Proprietary software is specifically licensed and not sold, in order to avoid limitations of copyright such as the first-sale doctrine.
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Vendors typically limit the number of computers on which Proprietary software can be used, and prohibit the user from installing the Proprietary software on extra computers.
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Vendors typically distribute proprietary software in compiled form, usually the machine language understood by the computer's central processing unit.
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Some licenses for proprietary software allow distributing changes to the source code, but only to others licensed for the product, and some of those modifications are eventually picked up by the vendor.
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In some cases, Proprietary software features are restricted during or after the trial period, a practice sometimes called crippleware.
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Proprietary software which is no longer marketed, supported or sold by its owner is called abandonware, the digital form of orphaned works.
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Some proprietary software is released by their owner at end-of-life as open-source or source available software, often to prevent the software from becoming unsupported and unavailable abandonware.
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Proprietary software is not synonymous with commercial software, although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in articles about free software.
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Proprietary software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee, and free software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee.
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The difference is that whether proprietary software can be distributed, and what the fee would be, is at the proprietor's discretion.
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Proponents of commercial proprietary software argue that requiring users to pay for software as a product increases funding or time available for the research and development of software.
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Proprietary software generally creates greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues.
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Proprietary software is often sold with a license that gives the end user right to use the software.
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Examples of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows, Adobe Flash Player, PS3 OS, Orbis OS, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Earth, macOS, Skype, WinRAR, Oracle's version of Java, Huawei's HarmonyOS and some versions of Unix.
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Some free software packages are simultaneously available under proprietary terms.
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Free software that depends on proprietary software is considered "trapped" by the Free Software Foundation.
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