GNU Public Licenses
GNU Public License
POS/355
March 22, 2014
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users.
When I say “free” I don’t mean free of charge, I mean free to do what you want with the program or file. To have your freedom to download, use, copy, and distribute what you want and how you want it. The General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that people have the freedom to distribute copies of free software, and charge for them if they wish, that people receive source code or can get it if they want it, that individuals can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that people know you can do these things (GNU).
The GPL was written by Richard Stallman in 1989 for use with programs released as part of the GNU project. The original GPL was based on a unification of similar licenses used for early versions GNU Emacs, GNU Debugger, and the GNU C Compiler. These licenses contained similar provisions to the modern GPL, but were specific to each program, rendering them incompatible, despite being the same license. Stallman 's goal was to produce one license that could be used for any project, thus making it possible for many projects to share code (Wikipedia).
The GPL was designed as a license, rather than a contract. In some Common Law jurisdictions, the legal distinction between a license and a contract is an important one: contracts are enforceable by contract law, whereas licenses are enforced under copyright law. However, this distinction is not useful in the many jurisdictions where there are no differences between contracts and licenses, such as Civil Law systems.
The license embodies the Free Software Foundation 's "copyleft" rule, which means that anyone is
POS/355
March 22, 2014
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users.
When I say “free” I don’t mean free of charge, I mean free to do what you want with the program or file. To have your freedom to download, use, copy, and distribute what you want and how you want it. The General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that people have the freedom to distribute copies of free software, and charge for them if they wish, that people receive source code or can get it if they want it, that individuals can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that people know you can do these things (GNU).
The GPL was written by Richard Stallman in 1989 for use with programs released as part of the GNU project. The original GPL was based on a unification of similar licenses used for early versions GNU Emacs, GNU Debugger, and the GNU C Compiler. These licenses contained similar provisions to the modern GPL, but were specific to each program, rendering them incompatible, despite being the same license. Stallman 's goal was to produce one license that could be used for any project, thus making it possible for many projects to share code (Wikipedia).
The GPL was designed as a license, rather than a contract. In some Common Law jurisdictions, the legal distinction between a license and a contract is an important one: contracts are enforceable by contract law, whereas licenses are enforced under copyright law. However, this distinction is not useful in the many jurisdictions where there are no differences between contracts and licenses, such as Civil Law systems.
The license embodies the Free Software Foundation 's "copyleft" rule, which means that anyone is
References: GNU : https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html retrieved on 3/21/14. Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License retrieved on 3/21/14