Proprietary
From Free net encyclopedia
Proprietary indicates that a party, or proprietor, exercises private ownership, control or use over an item of property, usually to the exclusion of other parties.
Where a party, holds or claims proprietary interests in relation to certain types of property (eg. a creative literary work, or software), that property may also be the subject of intellectual property law (eg. copyright or patents).
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Historical terms
- a proprietary colonel owed his regimental command not to promotion trough the ranks, but to a venal mode of appointment by the crown
- In the colonial era, a (notably British) monarch could, as a form of indirect rule, grant proprietary rights to individuals over a proprietary colony, in which the proprietors (sometimes styled Lords Proprietors) were given exclusive control, not just ownership under private law, or to a chartered company.
- a proprietary member is someone whose membership of some institution is a right derived from a specific property, especially real estate. E.g., the swansea harbour docks and over 20 miles of adjacent railways were owned and administered by a harbour trust of 26 members: the owner of the Briton Ferry estate (Earl Jersey), 4 representing the lord of the seigniory of Gower (the duke of Beaufort), 12 proprietary members and 9 elected annually by the corporation of Swansea.
Proprietary software
- See main article: Proprietary software
Software which is privately owned or controlled is known as proprietary software. However, the extent to which proprietary rights can be claimed or maintained in relation to software is a matter of considerable controversy (see software patent debate).
Proprietary software is not free software or open source software as end-users generally do not have the ability to:
- Run the software for any purpose
- Study and modify the software
- Copy the software and provide it to third parties
- Make and release improvements to the software
Etymology
The word proprietary comes from the French propriétaire, from the Latin proprietarius. Compare with the Latin proprietas (property), and proprius (ownership).
See also
Sources
(incomplete)
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition{{#if:{{{article|}}}| article {{#if:{{{url|}}}|[{{{url|}}}}} "{{{article}}}"{{#if:{{{url|}}}|]}}{{#if:{{{author|}}}| by {{{author}}}}}}}, a publication now in the public domain.
- WorldStatesmen- hereUSAde:Proprietär