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Gnu Public Licensing

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Submitted By LFountain
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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 of all free software users.” They maintain that free software is for the people’s benefit and not for proprietary gain by computer companies or the government that might try to keep tabs on computer users by monitoring usage.

References
Free Software Foundation. (2004-2014). Retrieved from http://www.fsf.org/about
GNU Operating System. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
GNU Operating System. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

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