Of course, Wikipedia articles, blog entries, and photos aren\u2019t the only thing that can be freely licensed. What really kicked off the free license movement was the introduction of free software licenses. The most famous may be the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is the license under which a large portion of the Linux operating system is available.<\/p>\n
Created and maintained by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, the same organization that maintains the GFDL, the GPL allows licensees to freely distribute copies and modifications provided a number of requirements are followed. One major restriction is that any derivatives or verbatim copies must be licensed under the GPL too (the GPL has a viral clause, similar in spirit to the GFDL). This means that companies cannot take free software, make a few modifications to it, and then re-release it as proprietary software. Another restriction is related to patents. The GPL forbids licensees from putting patents on GPL-licensed software, citing the fact that \u201cany free program is threatened constantly by software patents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last restriction, which is perhaps the most important, is that all licensees of the software must be given access to the source code. Licensees must either receive the source code along with the compiled version of the software, be able to request it and receive it from the developers for at least three years, or be given an Internet link where they can download the code (perhaps the most oft-used approach).<\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting is the way in which the GPL makes itself enforceable. Because users of free software do not sign licenses (and often are not even given the opportunity to click the click-wrap \u201cI agree\u201d buttons that are common in proprietary software), it is very plausible for a user to say that they did not see the license when they started using the software. The GPL notes this, saying, \u201cYou are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.\u201d (\u00a7 5) However, it goes on to note \u201cnothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program\u201d and that any modifications or redistribution imply that the licensee has read and accepted the license.<\/p>\n
This is interesting in that it notes two layers of rights: the default layer, which is restricted by law, disallowing any modification or redistribution of the software, and the GPL layer, the one with many of those restrictions waived. The GPL layer comes into existence only when the licensee has read and accepted the license; therefore, if anybody claims not to have read the GPL but engages in any redistribution or modification that would have been allowed under the GPL, they would simply be breaking the copyright laws present in the default layer.<\/p>\n
The GPL is not the only popular free software license. Many others exist, including the MIT License. The MIT License, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is even \u201cfreer\u201d than the GPL: it allows licensees to create derivatives and license them in any way, including for profit.<\/p>\n
The choice of whether to use the GPL, or an even freer license, such as the MIT license, is not one to be taken lightly: if the developer creates a product licensed under the MIT license, and later decides to reuse some portion of the code in a commercial product, he or she risks having competitors who have the same code and who can also resell their derivatives if they want. With the GPL, this is avoided \u2013 all licensed copies cannot be sold for profit, but the developer still has the right to use the code in any way he or she wants.<\/p>\n
That is the beauty of free software licenses: while giving users and other developers new freedoms that were unheard of back when proprietary software was the only paradigm, they still manage to protect developers and their right to be compensated for their hard work. Many developers see the beauty in this, and decide to license their software under a free license, bringing us today to a world in which almost anything \u2013 from enterprise-level database software to the core software that powers our phones \u2013 is available gratis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of course, Wikipedia articles, blog entries, and photos aren\u2019t the only thing that can be freely licensed. What really kicked off the free license movement was the introduction of free software licenses. The most famous may be the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is the license under which a large portion of the Linux […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2262],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-licenses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/keito\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}