Who?
- Bradley M. Kuhn
- Anthony K. Sebro, Jr.
- Denver Gingerich
- Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- Software Freedom Law Center
What?
Copyleft and the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide
Where?
When?
First Published 2008, up to date as of 2014
The Gist
A very helpful comprehensive guide that clarifies things like Software Freedom, Public Domain, Copyleft, Copyright, and licensing software. The guide specifically explains how the GPL v2 and v3 are meant to work and mentions some benefits and reasons for licensing software.
The Good
- Clarified a lot of topics. Questions I had after my last litreview were answered in this reading. Also really liked reading up on the 4 Freedoms of Free Software.
- Very up to date and tries to give full explanation of key concepts before diving straight into the license.
- I was very happy to read more about this license in particular because it is the most widely used free software license.
The Bad
- Software Freedom is not a legal concept so it's just going by what the FSF defines it as.
- Meant to explain a lot of information to a broad audience, so it is pretty dense and I had to read some parts multiple times.
- A lot of repetition of things I already knew, so I felt at points like parts were almost obvious to me.
The Questions
- Can I, depending on the license, open Github, find a project that I think is very good, compile the source code to an executable and sell that executable via perhaps CD or USB as long as I ship the source?
- What are some big reasons not to license under the GPL? V2 or V3?
- This question was asked in class but I am very curious - does Obfuscated code legally count as source code?
My Review
There were a lot of things about this article that I liked. I found it very helpful to read about the 4 Freedoms of Free Software and I liked clarifying the difference between software being Free as in freedom vs Free as in price. I think it was important that I read this document because I find the GPL to be the most interesting license, as it is the most widely used.
8/10
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