...GNU General Public License Jake Lundberg POS/355 12 April 2013 Terance Carlso Although there are many individuals, groups, and companies that try to sell software and other works for a charge, and prohibit the distribution and modification of those works, there are some that wish to go in the opposite direction. By this we mean that in contrast, some individuals, groups, or organizations want to offer their software or other works to the public with free access for modification and distribution. While most licenses for these kinds of works are created and designed to keep others from modifying or distributing them, there is another license that is designed to guarantee the freedom to change and share all versions of a work, and also to ensure that all later versions of that work remain free as well. This license is call the GNU General Public License (also called the GNU GPL, or simply the GPL). Before we discuss the details of the GNU GPL, the definition of the term “free” must be discussed. “Free”, in the context of the GNU GPL, refers to freedom, not cost or price. Meaning this license ensures that one is given the right to distribute copies of the work, that you receive source code for the work (or that you can get it if you so desire), that you can modify the work however you desire, that you can add parts of the work to other free works, and that you are aware that you can do these things. The GNU GPL does not hinder one from charging for their work if they choose...
Words: 916 - Pages: 4
...The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a free, copy left license used primarily for software. The GNU GPL allows users to change and share all versions of a program. It’s provided through the Free Software Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that works to provide free software for the GNU Project. *** General Public License is intended to guarantee ones freedom to share and change free software and also to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things. History The GNU Program was launched in 1984 for the express purpose of developing operating systems that are similar to Unix. Richard Stallman produced the first GPL through the GNU Program in 1989. Licensees must adhere to the designated terms and conditions of the GPLs and owners may sell copies of programs under GPL, or distribute them for free. With GPL owners are now allowed to modify digital materials as well. Role This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed...
Words: 501 - Pages: 3
...Open and Closed Source Systems Paper GNU GPL (General Public License) defined as the copy left or free licensed software (GNU.org, 2007). When making an invention the creator must have copyrights to protect them from their inventions. No one wants their inventions taken from them. They can loss acknowledgement or worse the royalties not given to them. Copyrights mean the right to copy; generally, it gives the copyright holder many other rights to their software or products. Creators who work hard to make their software or products a reality, they want that accreditation for their works; and they can determine who can take the work and financially benefit for the use it. It is a form of intellectual property; like patent, trademark, and trade secret (copyright.gov, 2012). By contrast, the GNU GPL is freedom of a guarantee to change and share the versions of the programs or software’s (GNU.org, 2007). Most organizations use GNU GPL for their software and it with their authors also that release the work. The licenses are put in place for developer’s freedom and to change and share their work that they develop; this is GNU General Public License. There are steps that are taken to use GNU GLP. (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this license giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it, and this the developers that uses GNU GLP protect your rights with these steps (GNU. org, 2007). When distributing copies of software...
Words: 479 - Pages: 2
...GNU GPL (General Public License) defined as the copy left or free licensed software (GNU.org, 2007). When making an invention the creator must have copyrights to protect them from their inventions. No one wants their inventions taken from them. They can loss acknowledgement or worse the royalties not given to them. Copyrights mean the right to copy; generally, it gives the copyright holder many other rights to their software or products. Creators who work hard to make their software or products a reality, they want that accreditation for their works; and they can determine who can take the work and financially benefit for the use it. It is a form of intellectual property; like patent, trademark, and trade secret (copyright.gov, 2012). By contrast, the GNU GPL is freedom of a guarantee to change and share the versions of the programs or software’s (GNU.org, 2007). Most organizations use GNU GPL for their software and it with their authors also that release the work. The licenses are put in place for developer’s freedom and to change and share their work that they develop; this is GNU General Public License. There are steps that are taken to use GNU GLP. (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this license giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it, and this the developers that uses GNU GLP protect your rights with these steps (GNU. org, 2007). When distributing copies of software for free, the creator must pass on the recipients and receiving...
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
...User License Agreements Microsoft Software License Terms User Rights Granted by Microsoft Write a paragraph defining the rights of the user in Microsoft’s EULA. Your paragraph must include what rights the user has to use, copy, and install the software. Can you sell or transfer the software to someone else? On how many devices may you install the software? Microsoft’s EULA states that the user has the right to install 1 copy of the software on 1 computer to be used by one person at a time. One cannot sell the software. They can however transfer it with seemingly strict guidelines. They may do so directly on a licensed computer with a COA. The user may reassign this software license to a different computer any number of times, but not more than one time every 90 days. You may not retain any copies. The software is also not licensed for commercial hosting Warranty with the Microsoft License Write a paragraph describing the warranty, if any, which comes with Microsoft Office. Microsoft does offer a limited warranty for this software. The warranty states that it is not responsible for any problems that the user causes due to not following instructions. The limited warranty starts when the user gets their copy and lasts for 1 year. If the user gets any updates or replacement software during that year, they are covered for the remainder of the year, or 30 days, whichever is longer. GNU General Public License User Rights Granted by GNU General Public License ...
Words: 656 - Pages: 3
...GNU Public License and its Role POS/355 July 21, 2014 GNU Public License and its Role The LINUX software and other products are restricted with a License or patents to keep individual from altering or modifying the software. Developers usually release their software programs the way they think it best suit the potential business owner or users. The General Public License (GNU) role is to ensure when new software is released that it remains free to everyone to use as they please. The GNU role is to remove any software that has no source code. The parts that do not contain a source code are called binary blob and firmware generally redistributable, do not give the user the freedom to modify or study them. General Public License know as (GNU) General Public License was created by Richard M. Stallman in 1970 when he was a programmer at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence lab. The General Public License (GNU/ GPL) is a copy left license for software and other kinds of work that are free to the public The General Public License is the most popular free and open source software (FOSS) license today. According to Ronald "free software and open source are often interchangeably used (and the respective movements share many common goals" (2006). The General Public License purpose is to guarantee individual or developers the freedom to share and alter any version of a program to ensure it remains free and available to every individual. The General Public License is used by...
Words: 519 - Pages: 3
...The GNU Public License and its Role What is the GNU Public License? The GNU is a public license covering and giving the designer the permission and freedom to distribute freeware. Freeware in this case means giving the general public the freedom to change and/or distribute copies of software, not necessarily software which has no price. With the GNU license you are guaranteed the freedom to make changes as you see fit, whereas other software licenses are restrictive and written in a way which prevents the user from making any form of changes or distributing the software how they see fit. In order to protect the rights of the users, the GNU public license has but one restriction. You cannot forbid anyone, whether making your version of the software available at no price or a fee, to deny the rights or ask anyone to surrender the rights to the software. The downloaded must be able to distribute or make copies of your software just as you had the same rights. You must make sure they are able to get to the source code and these terms must be shown in order to make them aware of these rights to it. The GNU public license protects your rights with two steps: “(1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.” ("Gnu general public," 1989) Each author is also protected by not providing a warranty for the free software. This way, if the software is modified by someone else and passed on...
Words: 458 - Pages: 2
...(Stallings, 2012). GNU is described as a free software set of packages and tolls for designed for developing a UNIX-like operating system that is often used with the Linux kernel. The Free Software Foundation’s GNU project, or GNU Not Linux, provides the necessary tools to developers and has approved the GNU Public License, or GPL (Stallings, 2012). According to Free Software Foundation, or FSF (2007), the GNU Public License discusses the freedom for designers to share and change all versions of the program. Linux is free software, as in free for anyone to use, modify, or copy without restraint. The GNU Public License, or GPL, provides a list of basic permissions, rights, and conveying verbatim copies (FSF, 2007). The main idea of publishing the GPL licensing terms is that no one who uses Linux and/or creates any Linux-derived copy can make the copy proprietary (Stallings, 2012). Under the GPL, basic permissions are granted to all who use, copy, or modify a GNU program. The basic permissions essentially grant unlimited permission to run an unmodified version of a program (FSF, 2007). According to the FSF (2007), permissions are also granted to convey a derivative of an unmodified program; however, the conditions listed below must be met: * The work must display a notice stating who modified and the date it was modified. * The work must display a notice that it is released under the GPL. * The entire work must be licensed under the GPL to ensure the license the whole...
Words: 540 - Pages: 3
...General Public License POS/355 Professor Fischer Jaquetta Meyers General Public License POS/355 Professor Fischer Jaquetta Meyers 1 The GNU or the General Public License was created by Richard Stallman in 1989. The program was started in 1984 to develop operating systems that were similar to UNIX. He thought in order to protect software from being made proprietary; it was he who made it a derivative of copyright law that serves “the opposite of its usual purpose”. ("Gnu General Public License (Gnu GPL or Simply GPL", 2008) The General Public License abbreviations can be GNU or GPL. GPL states that programmers can copy and distribute copies of a software program’s source code, under the condition that each copy displays a copyright notice. The GPL also deals with the modification and redistribution of software in which it requires the same conditions as well as notification of any changes made to the software. The GPL is under copyright ownership of the FSF which is a tax-exempt charity to generate funding for the software. The GPL was created to set forth principles of the founding of the project and FSF. The FSF is when a particular user has software freedom. They have freedom to run any program for any purpose, they can study the program to see how the program works and make changes if needed. The third freedom that is allowed by the user is the freedom to redistribute copies and finally they can distribute copies of changes made by others...
Words: 271 - Pages: 2
...Paper POS/355 Open and Closed Source Systems Paper GNU GPL (General Public License) defined as the copy left or free licensed software (GNU.org, 2007). When making an invention the creator must have copyrights to protect them from their inventions. No one wants their inventions taken from them. They can loss acknowledgement or worse the royalties not given to them. Copyrights mean the right to copy; generally, it gives the copyright holder many other rights to their software or products. Creators who work hard to make their software or products a reality, they want that accreditation for their works; and they can determine who can take the work and financially benefit for the use it. It is a form of intellectual property; like patent, trademark, and trade secret (copyright.gov, 2012). By contrast, the GNU GPL is freedom of a guarantee to change and share the versions of the programs or software’s (GNU.org, 2007). Most organizations use GNU GPL for their software and it with their authors also that release the work. The licenses are put in place for developer’s freedom and to change and share their work that they develop; this is GNU General Public License. There are steps that are taken to use GNU GLP. (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this license giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it, and this the developers that uses GNU GLP protect your rights with these steps (GNU. org, 2007). When distributing copies of software for free...
Words: 482 - Pages: 2
...Option One GNU Introduction The GNU or General Public License plays a major role today in the way people think of programs. Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was who originally written the GNU or simply GPL. The case is, most software’s don’t want you to share or change the program. This means that they are trying to take away freedoms of having the program. What the GNU General Public License is designed to do is the opposite of that because it offers freedom to share and change the software and to make sure it is free for all of its users. This creation caused it to be the most widely used free software license. The GPL accounted for nearly 65% of the 43,442 free software projects listed on Freshmeat as of August 2007. Some believe that the copyleft provided from the GPL was crucial to Linux’s Success because it gave assurance that the work done by programmers who were involved in the kernel would remain free and benefit the world. After the first version of the GPL, more were made that followed. The first GPL was made in 1989. After that, another version was made with similar licenses but there was concern over problems in the GPLv2 so they made another one in June 2007. Preamble The General Public License was designed so that it meant that the people won’t think of a free software as related to its price but more to freedom. What this means is that people can do almost anything to the program including, making copies, giving away copies, selling...
Words: 632 - Pages: 3
...GNU Public Licensing Lori C Fountain POS 355 October 1, 2014 Steven Clayden GNU Public Licensing GNU is a recursive acronym that means GNU is Not Unix. It is a type of operating system that remains free to users. Free means having the freedom to use the source code and to modify that source code. LINUX uses GNU. LINUX is the kernel and because the kernel cannot run by itself GNU Operating System is used with it. GNU general public license was copyrighted in 2007 to keep its program free to everyone. Anyone is allowed to use it verbatim for free but are not allowed to change the general public license ("Gnu Operating System", 2014). That is why GNU refers to this as “copyleft”. People who use the GNU public license may copyright their material but the copyright declares that it is free work. In other words, the material can be patented but the copyleft assures users they may use the source code and even modify it at no cost. According to “GNU Operating System” (2014), “Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or other work) free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well” (para. 1). Copyleft of a work keeps the work free so no one can make it proprietary. The GNU Operating System is sponsored by the Free Software Foundation. According to "Free Software Foundation" (2004-2014), “The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights...
Words: 336 - Pages: 2
...GNU was created in 1984 by computer programmer Richard A. Stallman who was affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology also known as MIT. Richard Stallman was also known as “The Last Hacker” to the IT community. Richard Stallman devoted his time and energy to develop a way to make software free with no price to all users and programmers. Due to Richard Stallman’s devotion to free software to all it has led to major software developers to pursue the idea as well and in doing so has created free Java software and other software to users. The General Public License also called GNU is a copy left license for software and other types of programs. GNU allows a programmer or user the freedom to run, copy, distribute study, change, create, and improve software for users. The software is free to the public and creates innovation for program and software developers to learn from other developers. Programs and software not considered free to the user is referred as non-free or propriety programs and this translates to the user the program controls the user and the developer controls the user, this is considers the program is an instrument of unjust power to the user. The GNU Public License provides a form of trust to the users and the developers by providing rights to other users to use and alter other programs. The rights for a user consist of a programmer who develops a program and wants to distribute this program through GNU the developer must allow other users the ability...
Words: 482 - Pages: 2
...licensing infringement. However, in 2006 Microsoft found that many of their patents had been infringed upon by several different aspects. The Linux kernel found in most servers was one of them. Microsoft took a big leap going after FOSS for 235 patents. FOSS is run by Stallman who was responsible for the GNU Manifesto also known to most as the GNU General Public License (GPL) . With Microsoft heading the full speed train against FOSS it took a demanding tire on both parties. While Microsoft, in the mean time was also striking a deal with Novell on its Linux based server support. FOSS was sure to go under as Linux was the base of all its open source used in many applications and the applications within Linux such as samaba or Open Office. The Deal with Novell was made to walk around the GPL of the GNU and expose loop holes for Microsoft’s gain but also creating a pressing dilemma for the GNU. The deal struck between Novell and Microsoft was a “we don’t sue you and you don’t sue us” which indicates that not only was FOSS involved in patent infringement but also Microsoft. The Deal included over 200 million dollars to Novell and 43 Million to Microsoft for “license distribution” of Novells’ Server software. The after effects of this deal resulted in a addition to the GPL from Stallman and his lawyer. This was meant to entrap Microsoft from making a deal like the one struck with Novell again and prohibit a resale effect of “coupons” that were redeemable for Novell...
Words: 419 - Pages: 2
...1. What is free software? List three characteristics of free software. Free software is software that users can change and distribute without any repercussions. The characteristics of free software is that the software can be used for any purpose, can be studied and changed and can be distributed with the changes made. 3. What are multiuser systems? Why are they successful? Multiuser systems allows many people to use all of the resources of the system at the same time. This makes the system successful because the resources available can be used to its utmost potential so its growth is always on the rise. 5. In which language is Linux written? What does the language have to do with the success of Linux? Linux is written in C which means that that it is portable. In this way it makes it successful for it can be adapted to different machines and allows it to complete tasks on almost any platform. 9. What is a shell? How does it work with the kernel? With the user? A shell is a command interpreter which is the link between you and the operating system. Shells can arrange a file for later execution using scripts which help with operations and keep kernels on a priority list. This also makes it so users can issue short commands that perform highly complex operations. 11. Why is the Linux filesystem referred to as hierarchical? The filesystem of Linux is hierarchical due to its structure of arranging files under directories. These directories can hold other directories...
Words: 388 - Pages: 2
