Differences between current version and revision by previous author of SoftwareLicensing.
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| Newer page: | version 18 | Last edited on Friday, July 8, 2005 10:39:48 am | by zcat(1) | |
| Older page: | version 14 | Last edited on Thursday, July 7, 2005 1:34:21 pm | by DanielLawson | Revert |
@@ -1,13 +1,34 @@
-Because
software is [Digital]
and therefore by nature very cheap
to copy
, when you purchase software you don't buy
it (
as in transfer of ownership);
you __license__
it, gaining
the right
to use it under a certain set of restrictions
.
+In the early days of home computers
software was truly sold, much the same way as a book
is sold. You owned the copy you had bought
and were free
to use it
, abuse it, or even reverse-engineer and hack
it as much as
you liked. But the author still had CopyRight on
it. So although you owned
the software you still weren't allowed
to make copies for redistribution without the author's permission
. In the days before SoftwareLicensing and the DMCA, breaking the copy protection on your own purchased games was completely legal as long as you didn't make copies afterwards!
-Books aren't licensed because when you buy the book
, copying the book would cost you more than buying a new book
, and up until
the invention
of the photocopier, bordered
on impossible (
you would have
had to transcribe
the book
). There really aren
't many
restrictions on what
you can do with a book. The standard "no part of this book may be retransmitted in any medium" is a CopyRight issue
.
+In order to keep better control over who was using their software
, some companies (AT&T
, DEC?) started to lease their software rather than selling it outright. You would pay for
the use
of an OperatingSystem or Application a year at a time. And although it was installed
on your computer
you didn't own it, you only
had a licence
to use it. Uusally these licences would also specify how many users could log in, or how many CPU's
the OS could utilise.
+
+Nowdays when you 'purchase' commercial software you generally don't buy it at all (as in transfer of ownership
); you __license__ it
. Since you don
't own the software the licensee can impose
restrictions on how
you're allowed to use the software, when or if you're allowed to resell it, and so on
.
License is a verb; licence is a noun. However, Americans care not for this kind of distinction, so the text of all the licences you will read use the spelling "license", and as such that's what you'll find on our wiki.
-Normal commercial software is licensed under some pretty restrictive terms; terms you wouldn't agree to buying any piece of property under. You used to get your license in the box you buy software in, but more commonly these days it's electronically. This is often in the form of an EndUserLicenseAgreement: the person who "bought" the software might not be the eventual user, and [software companies|MicrosoftCorporation] wanted to close that loophole pretty quickly.
-The [GNU] project turned licensing upside down by introducing CopyLeft; a license with different restrictions: the software was still licensed
(it wasn't released to the PublicDomain), but with terms saying that if you gave someone the program you also had to give them the SourceCode for the program if they asked for it; and under the same license.
That way you cannot take software released under a license like the [GPL] and take away the freedoms it affords you.
+The [GNU] project turned licensing upside down by introducing CopyLeft; a license with different restrictions: the software was still CopyRight
(it wasn't released to the PublicDomain), but with terms saying that if you gave someone a copy of
the program you also had to give them the SourceCode for the program if they asked for it; and under the same license. That way you cannot take software released under a license like the [GPL] and take away the freedoms it affords you.
+
+As Pamela Jones of Groklaw explains, a licence is legal permission to do something you wouldn't otherwise be allowed to do. The GPL is a CopyRight licence; it grants you permission from the copyright holder to make and distribute copies of the program.
+
+The GPL is not an End User Licence; "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." and further "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."
+
+Since several people in WLUG were/are apparently unsatisfied with my interpretation, I sent an email to the FreeSoftwareFoundation asking for clarification;
+
+ >> I've had several people tell me that when I recieve code under the
+ >> GPL, I do not own it (in the way I might own a book, for example) but
+ >> that I only have a licence to use it.
+
+ That's not accurate. You own a copy of GPL code just like you own a
+ copy of a book.
+
+ -- -Dave "Novalis" Turner
+ GPL Compliance Engineer
+ Free Software Foundation
+
+Thank you Dave.
+
Software can also be DualLicensed, commonly released free under the GPL, and commercially under a second license.
See Category:License for a list of licences.
