Open source glossary

We have collected commonly used words within the open source communities that aren’t (yet!) part of the regular tech industry parlance. We’ve avoided adding commands and applications to this list to keep it language- and platform-agnostic.

Here is the list arranged in alphabetical order:

Blame A feature that shows who last modified each line of a file.

Branch A parallel version of a repository, used to develop features or fixes independently from the main codebase.

Build The process of converting source code into a runnable program.

Cherry-pick The process of applying a specific commit from one branch to another.

Code review The process of examining code changes before they are merged.

Codebase The complete source code for a project.

Commit A saved change to the repository.

Commit Message A message that accompanies a commit, explaining what was changed and why.

Community The group of people who use, contribute to, and support a project.

Conflict A situation where changes from different sources cannot be automatically merged.

Continuous Deployment (CD) Automated deployment of code changes to production.

Continuous Integration (CI) Automated testing and building of code changes.

Contributor Someone who contributes code, documentation, or other resources to an open source project.

Contributor Guide Documentation that explains how to contribute to a project.

Contributor License Agreement (CLA) A legal agreement that contributors must sign before contributing.

Dependency A piece of software required for another piece of software to work.

Diff The differences between two versions of a file.

Downstream A fork of a project that receives changes from the upstream repository.

Fork A copy of someone else’s repository.

Git A distributed version control system.

Hotfix A quick fix for a bug in the project.

Issue A way to track tasks, enhancements, and bugs for a project.

Issue Tracker A tool for managing issues and tasks in a project.

License A legal document that specifies how the project’s code can be used, modified, and shared.

Local Repository A copy of a repository stored on a contributor’s local machine.

Maintainer A person responsible for overseeing and managing a project.

Merge Combining changes from one branch into another.

Patch A file that contains changes to be applied to a repository.

Pull The process of fetching and integrating changes from a remote repository.

Pull Request (PR) A request to merge changes from one branch into another branch.

Pull Request Review The process of examining a PR before merging.

Push The process of sending changes to a remote repository.

README A file that provides information about the project. Most commonly written in Markdown.

Release A specific version of a project that is made available for use.

Remote Repository A repository stored on a server, accessible over the internet.

Repository A storage space for software projects, often hosted on platforms like GitHub or GitLab.

Squash Combining multiple commits into one.

Stash Temporarily storing changes that are not ready to be committed.

Tag A marker for a specific point in the repository’s history.

Upstream The main project repository from which a fork is made.

Version Control A system for tracking changes to files over time.

Won’tfix Indication that an issue or bug will not be fixed.