Differences between version 3 and previous revision of CopyLeft.
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| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Friday, September 26, 2003 10:27:10 pm | by CraigBox | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Monday, September 8, 2003 12:37:26 pm | by GerwinVanDeSteeg | Revert |
@@ -3,9 +3,9 @@
The best way to define it is to quote from GNU's page at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html :
;: Copyleft is a general method for making a program FreeSoftware and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well.
-;: The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the PublicDomain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into ProprietarySoftware
. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.
+;: The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the PublicDomain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into [Proprietary] software
. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.
;: In the [GNU] project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute and change GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we ``copyleft'' it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom.
;: Copyleft also provides an incentive for other programmers to add to free software. Important free programs such as the [GNU C++ compiler|GCC] exist only because of this.
