It means you are not kept from learning how others succeeded. While the right to study is of little direct interest to people who are not programmers, it is vital for those who wish to program. Many programmers work under restrictions that forbid them from seeing others' code. Rather than sit on the shoulders of those who went before, which is the best way to see ahead and to advance, they are thrown into the mud. The right to study is the right to look ahead, to advance, by sitting on the shoulders of giants.
Software comes in two forms, one readable only by computers and the other readable by people.
The form that a computer can read is what the computer runs. This form is called a binary or executable. The form that a human can read is called source code. It is what a human programmer creates, and is translated by another computer program into the binary or executable form. The right to study means that the software itself must be made available in a manner that humans can read, as source code.