67-580: The Open Government Licence ( OGL ) is a copyright licence for Crown copyright works published by the UK government . Other UK public sector bodies may apply it to their publications. It was developed and is maintained by The National Archives . It is compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence . Since 2001, some works of the UK government had been made available under
134-706: 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
201-486: A copyleft license. Libre licenses without share-alike terms are sometimes called permissive licenses . The Creative Commons public copyright license suite includes licenses with attribution, share-alike, non-commercial and no-derivatives conditions. It also offers a public domain license and the Founders' Copyright license. Open supplement licenses permit derivatives of the work (specifically material that supplements
268-622: 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 –
335-452: 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
402-408: 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
469-443: 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
536-574: A list of FSF-approved software licenses and free documentation licenses. The Open Source Initiative keeps a similar list of OSI-approved software licenses. The Open Knowledge Foundation has a list of OKFN-approved licenses for content and data licensing. The implied license imposed by the Berne Convention , and the public domain (the CC0 license as waiver ), are the references for any other public license. Considering all cultural works, as in
603-460: 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
670-501: A public copyright license does not limit licensors either. Under this definition, license contract texts specific to a single licensor (like the UK government’s Open Government License, which would have to be edited to be used by other licensors) are not considered public copyright licenses, although they may qualify as open licenses. Some organisations approve public copyright licenses that meet certain criteria, in particular being free or open licenses. The Free Software Foundation keeps
737-399: A public copyright license must allow licensees to share and adapt the licensed work for any purpose, including commercial ones. Licenses that purport to release a work into the public domain are a type of libre license. Share-alike licenses require derivatives of the licensed work to be released under the same license as the original. When a libre license has a share-alike term, it is called
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#1732787827334804-536: 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
871-430: Is a license by which a copyright holder as licensor can grant additional copyright permissions to any and all persons in the general public as licensees. By applying a public license to a work, provided that the licensees obey the terms and conditions of the license, copyright holders give permission for others to copy or change their work in ways that would otherwise infringe copyright law. Some public licenses, such as
938-418: 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
1005-449: 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
1072-427: 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
1139-501: 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
1206-433: Is problematic. This is achieved by a public domain waiver statement and a fall-back all- permissive license . The Unlicense , published around 2010, has a focus on an anti-copyright message. The Unlicense offers a public domain waiver text with a fall-back public domain-like license inspired by permissive licenses but without attribution. GNU GPL The GNU General Public Licenses ( GNU GPL or simply GPL ) are
1273-500: 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
1340-499: 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
1407-698: 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
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#17327878273341474-508: 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
1541-583: The GNU GPL and the CC BY-SA , are also considered free or open copyright licenses . However, other public licenses like the CC BY-NC are not open licenses, because they contain restrictions on commercial or other types of use. Public copyright licenses do not limit their licensees. In other words, any person can take advantage of the license. The former Creative Commons (CC) Developing Nations License
1608-466: The Open Definition , the four freedoms summarizes the main differences: The "open licenses" preserve the main freedoms of CC0, but add some reasonable restriction. Labeling by its acronyms, the main restrictions are: Free licenses are a popular subset of public copyright licenses. They include free and open source software licenses and free content licenses. To qualify as a libre license,
1675-492: 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
1742-555: 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
1809-640: The "personal data" restriction to mean that photographs where "at least one individual is recognisable" cannot be OGL. Use of the OGL is encouraged by the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015, regulation 12 of which requires licences to be as non-restrictive as possible. The OGL is used by organisations at various levels within the UK Government , including: National and local government organisations which create software are encouraged to publish
1876-570: The Click-Use Licence. This was replaced by the first version of the OGL when it was released on 30 September 2010. The OGL was developed by The National Archives . The OGL was developed as part of the UK Government Licensing Framework, which also includes a non-commercial Government licence that restricts the commercial use of licensed content, as well as a charged licence for situations where charging for
1943-657: 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
2010-404: 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,
2077-527: 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
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2144-539: 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
2211-588: 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
2278-431: 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,
2345-464: 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
2412-502: The OGL terms by the relevant rights owner or authorised information provider. The licence may also be used by other public sector bodies, such as local government , the National Health Service or the police. It may be applied to texts, media, databases and source code. The OGL includes a list of types of information that it cannot cover. The licence states that it does not apply to: The Ministry of Defence interpret
2479-593: The OGL. The OGL permits anyone to copy, publish, distribute, transmit and adapt the licensed work, and to exploit it both commercially and non-commercially. In return, the re-user of the licensed work has to acknowledge the source of the work and (if possible) provide a link to the OGL. Version 3.0 of the licence carries the SPDX identifier OGL-UK-3.0 . The licence is also available in machine-readable format . The OGL applies to many but not all Crown copyright works. The works must have been expressly released under
2546-540: 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,
2613-429: 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
2680-470: 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
2747-399: 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
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2814-416: 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,
2881-536: 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
2948-420: 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
3015-431: 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
3082-453: 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
3149-477: The original work) but not duplicates. A subset of public copyright licenses which aim for no restrictions at all like public domain ("full permissive"), are public domain-like licenses . The 2000 released WTFPL license is a short public domain like software license . The 2009 released CC0 was created as public domain license for all content with compatibility with also law domains (e.g. Civil law of continental Europe ) where dedicating into public domain
3216-509: 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
3283-457: 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
3350-409: 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
3417-526: 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
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#17327878273343484-420: 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
3551-744: The re-use of content is deemed appropriate. The first version was designed to work in parallel with other licences such as those released by Creative Commons , mirroring the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence and the Open Data Commons Attribution Licence. Version 2.0, released on 28 June 2013, is directly compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and the Open Data Commons Attribution License. The OGL symbol (shown above)
3618-426: 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
3685-566: 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,
3752-440: 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,
3819-474: The source code under the OGL. A key purpose of this is to enable civil servants and other government employees to engage more effectively with the open-source software community. The United Kingdom Parliament uses a similar "Open Parliament Licence" (OPL). {{ OGL-3.0 }} and the Wikimedia template Public copyright license A public license or public copyright license
3886-417: 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,
3953-446: 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
4020-515: 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
4087-510: 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
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#17327878273344154-420: Was also released along with this version, which "at a glance, shows that information can be used and re-used under open licensing". Version 3.0 was released on 31 October 2014. It is interoperable with Creative Commons' Attribution 4.0 licence, and an OGL-licensed work could be used in a CC-licensed work, however it should be clear that the material used is being used under the OGL and it should still be linked to
4221-439: 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
4288-491: Was not a public copyright license, because it limited licensees to those in developing nations . Current Creative Commons licenses are explicitly identified as public licenses. Any person can apply a CC license to their work, and any person can take advantage of the license to use the licensed work according to the terms and conditions of the relevant license. According to the Open Knowledge Foundation ,
4355-426: 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
4422-594: 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
4489-528: 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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