The open-source model is a decentralized development model that encourages open collaboration.

A main principle of open-source software development is peer production, with products such as source code, blueprints, and documentation freely available to the public.

The open-source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code.

The model is used for projects such as in open-source appropriate technologies, and open-source drug discovery.

In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients".

This architecture is called the client–server model, and a single overall computation is distributed across multiple processes or devices.

Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients, or performing computation for a client.

A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers.

A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device.

Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers.

Cloud computing is a type of Internet-based computing that provides shared computer processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand.

It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., computer networks, servers, storage, applications and services), which can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort.

Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in either privately owned, or third-party data centers that may be located far from the user–ranging in distance from across a city to across the world.

Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over an electricity network.

Commercial software, or seldom payware, is computer software that is produced for sale or that serves commercial purposes.

Commercial software can be proprietary software or free and open source software.

Freeware is software that is available for use at no monetary cost.

In other words, while freeware may be used without payment it is most often proprietary software, as usually modification, re-distribution or reverse-engineering without the author's permission is prohibited.

Two historic examples of freeware include Skype and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

There is no agreed set of rights or a license or an EULA which would define "freeware" unambiguously; every Freeware publisher defines their own rules for their Freeware.

For instance, redistribution of Freeware by third-parties is often permitted but there is a significant portion of Freeware which prohibits redistribution.