South Korea's top tech firm Samsung Electronics Co. kicked off a conference on Tuesday to promote an open source ecosystem, with local programmers and technology experts sharing ideas and experiences.

Samsung Open Source Conference, which first started in 2014, falls in line with the tech giant's efforts to forge deeper ties with local developers to pave the way for the creation of new services and devices.

Open source refers to programs whose source codes are available to the public free-of-charge, allowing developers from across all industries to modify and redistribute them.

Samsung said the two-day event will allow developers to share ideas on vitalizing the open source ecosystem through the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data.

Key participants include Linus Torvalds, who created the open source-based operating system for computers, Linux. (Yonhap)