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It follows the successful LGPLv2.1 license, and was released by Free Software Foundation as a counterpart to its GNU General Public License version 3. The goal of the GNU Lesser General Public Licenses is to provide software that can be used by both proprietary and free software.
- GNU license - Wikipedia
A GNU license or GNU General Public License ( GNU GPL ), is...
- GNU General Public License - Simple English Wikipedia, the ...
The GPL was created by Richard Stallman. The current version...
- GNU license - Wikipedia
- The Foundations of The GPL
- Neutralizing Laws That Prohibit Free Software—But Notforbidding DRM
- Protecting Your Right to Tinker
- Stronger Protectionagainst Patent Threats
- Clarifying License Compatibility
- New Compatible Licenses
- More Ways For Developersto Provide Source
- Less Sourceto Distribute: New System Libraries Exception
- A Global License
- When Therules Are Broken: A Smooth Path to Compliance
Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are fourfreedoms that every user should have: 1. the freedom to use the software for any purpose, 2. the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, 3. the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and 4. the freedom to share the changes you make. When a program...
You're probably familiar with the Digital Restrictions Management(DRM) onDVDs and other media. You're probably also familiar with the laws thatmake it illegal to write your own tools to bypass those restrictions, likethe Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Union CopyrightDirective. Nobody should be able to stop you from writing any co...
Tivoization is a dangerous attempt to curtail users' freedom: theright to modify your software will become meaningless if none of yourcomputers let you do it. GPLv3 stops tivoization by requiring thedistributor to provide you with whatever information or data isnecessary to install modified software on the device. This may be assimple as a set of i...
In the 17 years since GPLv2 was published, the software patent landscapehas changed considerably, and free software licenses have developed newstrategies to address them. GPLv3 reflects these changes too. Wheneversomeone conveys software covered by GPLv3 that they've written or modified,they must provide every recipient with any patent licenses nec...
If you found some code and wanted to incorporate it into a GPLed project,GPLv2 said that the license on the other code was not allowed to have anyrestrictions that were not already in GPLv2. As long as that was the case,we said the license was GPL-compatible. However, some licenses had requirements that weren't really restrictive,because they were ...
In addition to clarifying the rules about licenses that are alreadyGPL-compatible, GPLv3 is also newly compatible with a few other licenses.The Apache License 2.0 is a prime example. Lots of great free software isavailable under this license, with strong communities surrounding it. Wehope that this change in GPLv3 will foster more cooperation and s...
One of the fundamental requirements of the GPL is that when you distributeobject code to users, you must also provide them with a way to get thesource. GPLv2 gave you a few ways to do this, and GPLv3 keeps those intactwith some clarification. It also offers you new ways to provide sourcewhen you convey object code over a network. For instance, when...
Both versions of the GPL require you to provide all the source necessary tobuild the software, including supporting libraries, compilation scripts,and so on. They also draw the line at System Libraries: you're notrequired to provide the source for certain core components of the operatingsystem, such as the C library. GPLv3 has adjusted the definiti...
GPLv2 talks about “distribution” a lot—when youshare the program with someone else, you're distributing it. Thelicense never says what distribution is, because the term was borrowedfrom United States copyright law. We expected that judges would lookthere for the definition. However, we later found out that copyrightlaws in other countries use the s...
Under GPLv2, if you violated the license in any way, your rights wereautomatically and permanently lost. The only way to get them back was topetition the copyright holder. While a strong defense against violationsis valuable, this policy could cause a lot of headache when someoneaccidentally ran afoul of the rules. Asking all the copyright holders ...
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Jun 29, 2007 · Definitions. “This License” refers to version 3 of the GNU General Public License. “Copyright” also means copyright-like laws that apply to other kinds of works, such as semiconductor masks. “The Program” refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this License. Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
Apr 29, 2024 · See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses>. Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7
Apr 12, 2022 · The GNU General Public License is often called the GNU GPL for short; it is used by most GNU programs, and by more than half of all free software packages. The latest version is version 3. The GNU General Public License is available in these formats: HTML , plain text , ODF , Docbook v4 or v5 , Texinfo , LaTeX, Markdown, and RTF .
