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Review of the GNU General Public License (“GPL”)

  • GPL reflects philosophical outlook

    • “My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software which forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.”
    • www.fsf.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html

  • FSF focus is “free software”

  • Allows recipient to use and modify GPL code freely

  • Distribution of GPL code leads to certain obligations:

    • Any other code combined in the same program must be governed by GPL and its source code made freely available (known as the “viral” or “inheritance” feature)