I think the words you are looking for are "infrastructural software".. Software that works as infrastructure, such as linux, web browsers, databases, ie, mostly

I think the words you are looking for are "infrastructural software".. Software that works as infrastructure, such as linux, web browsers, databases, ie, mostly anything that we can build other more specific software on top of, has the tendency to become open source. And one cannot deny the increased value that that software brings, for instance, linux servers and open source browsers and all the economy around the internet..