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82-490: Its features include: EVMS is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. EVMS is supported now in some Linux distributions, among others it is now (2008) SUSE , Debian and Gentoo For a while, both LVM and EVMS were competing for inclusion in the mainline kernel. EVMS had more features and better userland tools, but the internals of LVM were more attractive to kernel developers, so in

164-678: A Balkanisation of the "Open Source Universe". Linus Torvalds, who decided not to adopt the GPLv3 for the Linux kernel, reiterated his criticism several years later. GPLv3 improved compatibility with several free software licenses such as the Apache License, version 2.0, and the GNU Affero General Public License, which GPLv2 could not be combined with. However, GPLv3 software could only be combined and share code with GPLv2 software if

246-601: A patent infringement claim or other litigation to impair users' freedom under the license. By 1990, it was becoming apparent that a less restrictive license would be strategically useful for the C library and for software libraries that essentially did the job of existing proprietary ones; when version 2 of the GPL (GPLv2) was released in June 1991, therefore, a second license – the GNU Library General Public License –

328-452: A "user" and a "consumer product". It also explicitly removed the section on "Geographical Limitations", the probable removal of this section having been announced at the launch of the public consultation. The fourth discussion draft, which was the last, was released on 31 May 2007. It introduced Apache License version 2.0 compatibility (prior versions are incompatible), clarified the role of outside contractors, and made an exception to avoid

410-408: A US federal court ruled that an open-source license is an enforceable contract. In October 2021 SFC sued Vizio over breach of contract as an end user to request source code for Vizio's TVs, a federal judge has ruled in the interim that the GPL is an enforceable contract by end users as well as a license for copyright holders. The text of the GPL is itself copyrighted , and the copyright is held by

492-489: A free software law in January 2006. Decree No. 3,390 mandated all government agencies to migrate to free software over a two-year period. Publiccode.eu is a campaign launched demanding a legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. If it is public money, it should be public code as well. The French Gendarmerie and

574-443: A licensee has no right to redistribute it, not even in modified form (barring fair use ), except under the terms of the license. One is only required to adhere to the terms of the GPL if one wishes to exercise rights normally restricted by copyright law, such as redistribution. Conversely, if one distributes copies of the work without abiding by the terms of the GPL (for instance, by keeping the source code secret), they can be sued by

656-456: A modified derivative of a GPL licensed content management system is not required to distribute its changes to the underlying software, because the modified web portal is not being redistributed but rather hosted, and also because the web portal output is also not a derivative work of the GPL licensed content management system. There has been debate on whether it is a violation of the GPLv1 to release

738-432: A post-work society. He argues that the combination of a manipulation of intellectual property law and private property to make goods available to the public and a thorough blend between labor and fun make the free software movement a communist economy . Since its inception, there is an ongoing contention between the many FLOSS organizations ( FSF , OSI , Debian , Mozilla Foundation , Apache Foundation , etc.) within

820-454: A practical question rather than an ethical dilemma – non-free software is not the best solution but nonetheless a solution. The free software movement views free software as a moral imperative: that proprietary software should be rejected, and that only free software should be developed and taught in order to make computing technology beneficial to the general public. Although the movements have differing values and goals, collaborations between

902-520: A series of widely used free software licenses , or copyleft licenses, that guarantee end users the freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The GPL was the first copyleft license for general use. It was originally written by Richard Stallman , the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project . The license grants the recipients of a computer program

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984-419: A stall at software-related conferences to raise awareness of software freedom. This is seen as important since people who receive free software, but who are not aware that it is free software, will later accept a non-free replacement or will add software that is not free software. A lot of lobbying work has been done against software patents and expansions of copyright law . Other lobbying focuses directly on

1066-511: Is a serious concern in the FLOSS domain due to increased complexity of license compatibility considerations which limits and complicates source code reuse between FLOSS projects. The OSI and the FSF maintain their own lists of dozens of existing and acceptable FLOSS licenses. There is an agreement among most that the creation of new licenses should be minimized and those created should be made compatible with

1148-418: Is allowed to charge a fee for this service or do this free of charge. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution. The FSF argues that free software should not place restrictions on commercial use, and the GPL explicitly states that GPL works may be sold at any price. The GPL additionally states that a distributor may not impose "further restrictions on

1230-452: Is an issue regarding linking: namely, whether a proprietary program that uses a GPL library is in violation of the GPL. Free software community The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users , namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets these requirements, The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software ,

1312-449: Is applied to ensure that end users retain the freedoms defined above. However, software running as an application program under a GPL-licensed operating system such as Linux is not required to be licensed under GPL or to be distributed with source-code availability—the licensing depends only on the used libraries and software components and not on the underlying platform. For example, if a program consists only of original source code , or

1394-427: Is combined with source code from other software components , then the custom software components need not be licensed under GPL and need not make their source code available; even if the underlying operating system used is licensed under the GPL, applications running on it are not considered derivative works. Only if GPL licensed parts are used in a program (and the program is distributed), then all other source code of

1476-449: Is how the compiled code was available and there are "clear directions" on where to find the source code. The FSF does not hold the copyright for a work released under the GPL unless an author explicitly assigns copyrights to the FSF (which seldom happens except for programs that are part of the GNU project). Only the individual copyright holders have the authority to sue when a license violation

1558-465: Is not easy to raise money for free software projects. The free software movement champions copyleft licensing schema (often pejoratively called " viral licenses "). In its strongest form, copyleft mandates that any works derived from copyleft-licensed software must also carry a copyleft license, so the license spreads from work to work like a computer virus might spread from machine to machine. Stallman has previously stated his opposition to describing

1640-500: Is prohibited by copyright law . The FSF argues that freedom-respecting free software should also not restrict commercial use and distribution (including redistribution): In purely private (or internal) use—with no sales and no distribution—the software code may be modified and parts reused without requiring the source code to be released. For sales or distribution, the entire source code needs to be made available to end users, including any code changes and additions—in that case, copyleft

1722-437: Is reinforced by fact that majority of OSI-approved licenses and self-avowed open-source programs are also compatible with the free software formalisms and vice versa. While free and open source software are often linked together, they offer two separate ideas and values. Richard Stallman has referred to open source as " a non-movement ", as it " does not campaign for anything ". "Open source" addresses software being open as

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1804-526: Is software piracy. Promotion of adoption of FOSS is essential however it comes with problems of proprietary anti competition software practices including indulging in bribing and corruption by government departments. Pakistan works on the introduction  of usage of open type  basis of source Solutions in the curricula  in schools and colleges. This is because of FOSS uniqueness in terms of political, democratic and social varieties of aspect regarding  information communication and technology. In

1886-499: Is suspected. Software under the GPL may be run for all purposes, including commercial purposes and even as a tool for creating proprietary software , such as when using GPL-licensed compilers . Users or companies who distribute GPL-licensed works (e.g. software), may charge a fee for copies or give them free of charge. This distinguishes the GPL from shareware software licenses that allow copying for personal use but prohibit commercial distribution or proprietary licenses where copying

1968-530: Is termed free software . Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by launching the GNU Project . Stallman later established the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement. The philosophy of the Free Software Movement is based on promoting collaboration between programmers and computer users. This process necessitates

2050-402: Is the willingness of programmers in the free software movement to work, often producing higher-quality than proprietary programmers, without financial compensation . In his 1998 article "The High-Tech Gift Economy", Richard Barbrook suggested that the then-nascent free software movement represented a return to the gift economy building on hobbyism and the absence of economic scarcity on

2132-451: Is where people get the misconception of "free": there is no wrong in programmers' requesting payment for a proposed project, or charging for copies of free software. Restricting and controlling the user's decisions on use is the actual violation of freedom. Stallman defends that in some cases, monetary incentive is not necessary for motivation since the pleasure in expressing creativity is a reward in itself. Conversely, Stallman admits that it

2214-691: The ASP loophole in the GPL . As there were concerns expressed about the administrative costs of checking code for this additional requirement, it was decided to keep the GPL and the AGPL license separated. Others, notably some high-profile Linux kernel developers such as Linus Torvalds , Greg Kroah-Hartman , and Andrew Morton , commented to the mass media and made public statements about their objections to parts of discussion drafts 1 and 2. The kernel developers referred to GPLv3 draft clauses regarding DRM / Tivoization , patents, and "additional restrictions", and warned of

2296-499: The AGPL (v1) , and patent deals between Microsoft and distributors of free and open-source software, which some viewed as an attempt to use patents as a weapon against the free software community. Version 3 was developed as an attempt to address these concerns and was officially released on 29 June 2007. Version 1 of the GNU GPL, released on 25 February 1989, was written to protect against

2378-587: The French National Assembly utilize the open source operating system Linux . Gov.uk keeps a list of "key components, tools and services that have gone into the construction of GOV.UK". Free Software events happening all around the world connects people to increase visibility for Free software projects and foster collaborations. The free software movement has been extensively analyzed using economic methodologies, including perspectives from heterodox economics . Of particular interest to economists

2460-706: The GNU GPL as "viral". These licensing terms can only be enforced through asserting copyrights. Critics of copyleft licensing challenge the idea that restricting modifications is in line with the free software movement's emphasis on various "freedoms", especially when alternatives like MIT , BSD , and Apache licenses are more permissive. Proponents enjoy the assurance that copylefted work cannot usually be incorporated into non-free software projects. They emphasize that copyleft licenses may not attach for all uses and that in any case, developers can simply choose not to use copyleft-licensed software. FLOSS license proliferation

2542-481: The Software Freedom Law Center . According to Stallman, the most important changes were in relation to software patents , free software license compatibility, the definition of "source code", and hardware restrictions on software modifications, such as tivoization . Other changes related to internationalization, how license violations are handled, and how additional permissions could be granted by

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2624-546: The WIPO Copyright Treaty , and that those who convey the work waive all legal power to prohibit circumvention of the technical protection measure "to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work". This means that users cannot be held liable for circumventing DRM implemented using GPLv3-licensed code under laws such as the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The distribution rights granted by

2706-634: The Free Software Foundation. The FSF permits people to create new licenses based on the GPL, as long as the derived licenses do not use the GPL preamble without permission. This is discouraged, however, since such a license might be incompatible with the GPL and causes a perceived license proliferation . Other licenses created by the GNU project include the GNU Lesser General Public License , GNU Free Documentation License , and GNU Affero General Public License . The text of

2788-431: The Free Software Movement and Open Source Initiative have taken place when it comes to practical projects. By 2005, Richard Glass considered the differences to be a "serious fracture" but "vitally important to those on both sides of the fracture" and "of little importance to anyone else studying the movement from a software engineering perspective" since they have had "little effect on the field". Eric Raymond criticises

2870-404: The GPL for modified versions of the work are not unconditional. When someone distributes a GPL licensed work plus their own modifications, the requirements for distributing the whole work cannot be any greater than the requirements that are in the GPL. This requirement is known as copyleft. It earns its legal power from the use of copyright on software programs. Because a GPL work is copyrighted,

2952-517: The GPL is not itself under the GPL. The license's copyright disallows modification of the license. Copying and distributing the license is allowed since the GPL requires recipients to get "a copy of this License along with the Program". According to the GPL FAQ, anyone can make a new license using a modified version of the GPL as long as they use a different name for the license, do not mention "GNU", and remove

3034-525: The GPL license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and open-source software (FOSS) domain. Prominent free software programs licensed under the GPL include the Linux kernel and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). David A. Wheeler argues that the copyleft provided by the GPL was crucial to the success of Linux -based systems, giving the programmers who contributed to

3116-582: The GPL license includes an optional "any later version" clause, allowing users to choose between the original terms or the terms in new versions as updated by the FSF. Software projects licensed with the optional "or later" clause include the GNU Project, while projects like the Linux kernel is licensed under GPLv2 only. The "or any later version" clause is sometimes known as a "lifeboat clause" since it allows combinations between different versions of GPL-licensed software to maintain compatibility. The original GPL

3198-431: The GPL licensed program, they may still use the software within their organization however they like, and works (including programs) constructed by the use of the program are not required to be covered by this license. Software developer Allison Randal argued that the GPLv3 as a license is unnecessarily confusing for lay readers, and could be simplified while retaining the same conditions and legal force. In April 2017,

3280-460: The GPLv2 license used had the optional "or later" clause and the software was upgraded to GPLv3. While the "GPLv2 or any later version" clause is considered by FSF as the most common form of licensing GPLv2 software, Toybox developer Rob Landley described it as a lifeboat clause . Software projects licensed with the optional "or later" clause include the GNU Project , while a prominent example without

3362-464: The Internet. Gabriella Coleman has emphasized the importance of accreditation, respect, and honour within the free software community as a form of compensation for contributions to projects, over and against financial motivations. The Swedish Marxian economist Johan Söderberg has argued that the free software movement represents a complete alternative to capitalism that may be expanded to create

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3444-523: The Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX). The license includes instructions to specify "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" to allow the flexible optional use of either version 2 or 3, but some developers change this to specify "version 2" only. In late 2005, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced work on version 3 of the GPL (GPLv3). On 16 January 2006,

3526-582: The United States, there have been efforts to pass legislation at the state level encouraging the use of free software by state government agencies. On January 11, 2022, two bills were shown on the New Hampshire legislating floor. The first bill called "HB 1273" was introduced by Democratic New Hampshire representative Eric Gallager, the bill prioritized "replacing proprietary software used by state agencies with free software." Gallager stated that to an extent,

3608-424: The attention of Microsoft , Peru, whose general manager wrote a letter to Villanueva. His response received worldwide attention and is seen as a classic piece of argumentation favouring use of free software in governments. Uruguay has a sanctioned law requiring that the state give priority to free software. It also requires that information be exchanged in open formats . The Government of Venezuela implemented

3690-482: The belief that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms, and that they are required in creating a community where software users can help each other and have control over their technology. Regarding proprietary software , some believe that it is not strictly immoral, citing increased profitability in the business models available for proprietary software, along with technical features and convenience. The Free Software Foundation espouses

3772-429: The clause is the Linux kernel. The final version of the license text was published on 29 June 2007. The terms and conditions of the GPL must be made available to anybody receiving a copy of a work that has a GPL applied to it ("the licensee"). Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version. The licensee

3854-470: The copyright holder. The concept of "software propagation", as a term for the copying and duplication of software, was explicitly defined. The public consultation process was coordinated by the Free Software Foundation with assistance from Software Freedom Law Center, Free Software Foundation Europe , and other free software groups. Comments were collected from the public via the gplv3.fsf.org web portal, using purpose-written software called stet . During

3936-689: The end LVM won the battle for inclusion. In response, the EVMS team decided to concentrate on porting the EVMS userland tools to work with the LVM kernelspace. Sometime after the release of version 2.5.5 on February 26, 2006, IBM discontinued development of the project. There have been no further releases. In 2008 Novell announced that the company would be moving from EVMS to LVM in future editions of their SUSE products, while continuing to fully support customers using EVMS. GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses ( GNU GPL or simply GPL ) are

4018-731: The existence of FOSS in China has been important in challenging the presence of Microsoft , which Guangnan Ni, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering stated, "The monopoly of (Microsoft Windows) is even more powerful in China than other places in the world". Yi Zhou, a professor of mathematics at Fudan University , has also alleged that, "Government procurement of FLOSS for a number of years in China has compelled Microsoft to cut its prices of Office software substantially" Government of India had issued Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India in 2015 to drive uptake within

4100-399: The first "discussion draft" of GPLv3 was published, and the public consultation began. The public consultation was originally planned for nine to fifteen months, but ultimately lasted eighteen months, with four drafts being published. The official GPLv3 was released by the FSF on 29 June 2007. GPLv3 was written by Richard Stallman, with legal counsel from Eben Moglen and Richard Fontana from

4182-493: The free software movement, with the main conflicts centered around the organization's needs for compromise and pragmatism rather than adhering to founding values and philosophies. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in February 1998 by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens to promote the term " open-source software " as an alternative term for free software . The OSI aimed to address the perceived shortcomings and ambiguity of

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4264-443: The freedoms of free software. According to Stallman, "The only thing in the software field that is worse than an unauthorised copy of a proprietary program, is an authorised copy of the proprietary program because this does the same harm to its whole community of users, and in addition, usually the developer, the perpetrator of this evil, profits from it." Some supporters of the free software movement take up public speaking , or host

4346-538: The government. With the vision to transform India as a Software Product Nation, National Policy on Software Products-2019 was approved by the Government. Free and Open Source Software (Foss) is crucial for countries such as Pakistan which is set up by Union of Information Technology. For the case of Pakistan, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) aids in the creation and advocate of FOSS usage in various government departments in addition to curbing illegality of copying that

4428-416: The kernel assurance that their work would benefit the whole world and remain free, rather than being exploited by software companies that would not have to give anything back to the community. In 2007, the third version of the license (GPLv3) was released to address some perceived problems with the second version (GPLv2) which were discovered during the latter's long-time usage. To keep the license current,

4510-536: 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. Those who do not accept the GPL's terms and conditions do not have permission, under copyright law, to copy or distribute GPL-licensed software or derivative works. However, if they do not redistribute

4592-420: The license. Copyleft applies only when a person seeks to redistribute the program. Developers may make private modified versions with no obligation to divulge the modifications, as long as they do not distribute the modified software to anyone else. Copyleft applies only to the software, and not to its output (unless that output is itself a derivative work of the program). For example, a public web portal running

4674-431: The major change in GPLv2 was the "Liberty or Death" clause, as he calls it – Section 7. The section says that licensees may distribute a GPL-covered work only if they can satisfy all of the license's obligations, despite any other legal obligations they might have. In other words, the obligations of the license may not be severed due to conflicting obligations. This provision is intended to discourage any party from using

4756-453: The original author under copyright law. Copyright law has historically been used to prevent distribution of work by parties not authorized by the creator. Copyleft uses the same copyright laws to accomplish a very different goal. It grants rights to distribution to all parties insofar as they provide the same rights to subsequent ones, and they to the next, etc. In this way, the GPL and other copyleft licenses attempt to enforce libre access to

4838-509: The parties who would receive the covered work from you, a discriminatory patent license   ... This aimed to make such future deals ineffective. The license was also meant to cause Microsoft to extend the patent licenses it granted to Novell customers for the use of GPLv3 software to all users of that GPLv3 software; this was possible only if Microsoft was legally a "conveyor" of the GPLv3 software. Early drafts of GPLv3 also let licensors add an AGPL -like requirement that would have plugged

4920-452: The perceived problems of a Microsoft–Novell style agreement, saying in Section 11 paragraph 6 that: You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of

5002-409: The preamble, though the preamble can be used in a modified license if permission to use it is obtained from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). According to the FSF, "The GPL does not require you to release your modified version or any part of it. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them." However, if one releases a GPL-licensed entity to the public, there

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5084-511: The principle that all software needs free documentation, as programmers should have the ability to update manuals to reflect modifications made to the software. Within the movement, the FLOSS Manuals foundation specializes in providing such documentation. The core work of the free software movement is focused on software development. The free software movement also rejects proprietary software, refusing to install software that does not give them

5166-522: The program needs to be made available under the same license terms. The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) was created to have a weaker copyleft than the GPL, in that it does not require custom-developed source code (distinct from the LGPL licensed parts) to be made available under the same license terms. The fifth section of version 3 states that no GPL-licensed code shall be considered an effective "technical protection measure" as defined by Article 11 of

5248-420: The proposed legislation will help distinguish "free software" and "open-source software", this will also put these two into state regulation. The second bill called "HB 1581" was proposed by Grafton Republican representative Lex Berezhny. The bill would've restored a requisite forcing "state agencies to use proprietary software" and as Lex put it, "when it is the most effective solution." He also said that requisite

5330-420: The public consultation process, 962 comments were submitted for the first draft. By the end of the comment period, a total of 2,636 comments had been submitted. The third draft was released on 28 March 2007. This draft included language intended to prevent patent-related agreements such as the controversial Microsoft-Novell patent agreement , and restricted the anti-tivoization clauses to a legal definition of

5412-528: The rejection of proprietary software and the promotion of free software . Stallman notes that this action would not hinder the progression of technology, as he states, "Wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art." Members of the Free Software Movement believe that all software users should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition . Members hold

5494-426: The rights granted by the GPL". This forbids activities such as distributing the software under a non-disclosure agreement or contract. The fourth section for version 2 of the license and the seventh section of version 3 require that programs distributed as pre-compiled binaries be accompanied by a copy of the source code, a written offer to distribute the source code via the same mechanism as the pre-compiled binary, or

5576-544: The rights of the Free Software Definition . The licenses in the GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. It is more restrictive than the Lesser General Public License and even further distinct from the more widely-used permissive software licenses such as BSD , MIT , and Apache . Historically,

5658-440: The source code in obfuscated form, such as in cases in which the author is less willing to make the source code available. The consensus was that while unethical, it was not considered a violation. The issue was clarified when the license was altered with v2 to require that the "preferred" version of the source code be made available. The GPL was designed as a license , rather than a contract. In some common law jurisdictions,

5740-430: The speed at which the free software movement is progressing, suggesting that temporary compromises should be made for long-term gains. Raymond argues that this could raise awareness of the software and thus increase the free software movement's influence on relevant standards and legislation. Richard Stallman, on the other hand, sees the current level of compromise as a greater cause for worry. Stallman said that this

5822-440: The term "free software", as well as shifting the focus of free software from a social and ethical issue to instead emphasize open source as a superior model for software development. The latter became the view of Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds , while Bruce Perens argued that open source was meant to popularize free software under a new brand and called for a return to basic ethical principles. Some free software advocates use

5904-411: The terms " Free and Open-Source Software " (FOSS) or "Free/Libre and Open-Source Software" (FLOSS) as a form of inclusive compromise, which brings free and open-source software advocates together to work on projects cohesively. Some users believe this is an ideal solution in order to promote both the user's freedom with the software and the pragmatic efficiency of an open-source development model. This view

5986-417: The terms of GPLv1 could be combined with software under more permissive terms, as this would not change the terms under which the whole could be distributed. However, software distributed under GPLv1 could not be combined with software distributed under a more restrictive license, as this would conflict with the requirement that the whole be distributable under the terms of GPLv1. According to Richard Stallman,

6068-446: The two main methods by which software distributors restricted the freedoms that define free software. The first problem was that distributors might publish only binary files that are executable, but not readable or modifiable by humans. To prevent this, GPLv1 stated that copying and distributing copies of any portion of the program must also make the human-readable source code available under the same licensing terms. The second problem

6150-860: The use of free software by government agencies and government-funded projects. In June 1997, the Society for Study, Application, and Development of Free Software was established under the China Software Industry Association in Beijing. Through this organization, the website freesoft.cei.gov.cn was developed, though the website is currently inaccessible on IP addresses located in the United States. The use of open-source software Linux in China has moved beyond government and educational institutions and has extended to other organizations such as financial institutions, telecommunications, and public security. Several Chinese researchers and scholars have claimed that

6232-459: The work and all derivatives. Many distributors of GPL licensed programs bundle the source code with the executables . An alternative method of satisfying the copyleft is to provide a written offer to provide the source code on a physical medium (such as a CD) upon request. In practice, many GPL licensed programs are distributed over the Internet, and the source code is made available over FTP or HTTP . For Internet distribution, this complies with

6314-510: The written offer to obtain the source code that the user got when they received the pre-compiled binary under the GPL. The second section of version 2 and the fifth section of version 3 also require giving "all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program". Version 3 of the license allows making the source code available in additional ways in fulfillment of the seventh section. These include downloading source code from an adjacent network server or by peer-to-peer transmission, provided that

6396-631: Was happening between 2012 and 2018. According to the Concord Monitor, the state of New Hampshire had an already "thriving open source software community" with a view of "live free or die" but they had difficulty getting that notion with the state. Congressmen Edgar David Villanueva and Jacques Rodrich Ackerman have been instrumental in introducing free software in Peru , with bill 1609 on "Free Software in Public Administration". The incident invited

6478-439: Was introduced at the same time and numbered with version 2 to show that both were complementary. The version numbers diverged in 1999 when version 2.1 of the LGPL was released, which renamed it the GNU Lesser General Public License to reflect its place in the philosophy. The GPLv2 was also modified to refer to the new name of the LGPL, but its version number remained the same, resulting in the original GPLv2 not being recognised by

6560-426: Was that distributors might add restrictions, either to the license or by combining the software with other software that had other restrictions on distribution. The union of two sets of restrictions would apply to the combined work, thus adding unacceptable constrictions. To prevent this, GPLv1 stated that modified versions, as a whole, had to be distributed under the terms of GPLv1. Therefore, software distributed under

6642-594: Was to produce one license that could be used for any project, thus making it possible for many projects to share code. The second version of the license, version 2, was released in 1991. Over the following 15 years, members of the free software community became concerned over problems in the GPLv2 license that could let someone exploit GPL-licensed software in ways contrary to the license's intent. These problems included tivoization (the inclusion of GPL-licensed software in hardware that refuses to run modified versions of its software), compatibility issues similar to those of

6724-519: Was written by Richard Stallman in 1989, for use with programs released as part of the GNU project. It was based on a unification of similar licenses used for early versions of GNU Emacs (1985), the 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

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