CSC 379:Week 2, Group 5

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GNU General Public License

Overview

The General Public License (GPL) was created in 1989 by Richard Stallman as originally a way of allowing many projects to share source code under a unifying license. In simple terms, a project licensed with the GPL can be freely distributed and charged for, but any and all distribution must provide the source code to the consumer as well. Also, according to the GPL, any work which uses code licensed by the GPL must license itself with the GPL. It ensures that any software that was derived from open source remains available to the general public and freely distributable.

  • GPLV1
  • GPLV2
  • GPLV3

Discussion Questions

What is the impact of GPL use?

  • Personal Software Users
  • Developers - Open Source, Commercial
  • Software Companies
  • Industry and Business
  • Non-profit organizations
  • Government
  • Education and Research
  • Foreign Countries

What are the ethical considerations for licenses like GPL that require their adoption if work licensed under it is incorporated into a parent work, with additional stipulations that include the acceptance of the most current version of the GPL license?

The main ethical issue with a license requiring the acceptance of the most recent version is that it forces the user to sign a contract which has not been written yet. While the user could agree with the current version, a future version may change in such a fashion as to restrict the liberties of the user beyond what they would agree to. This setup provides a large amount of leverage and power to the writers of the new versions of the license because they can force a huge tree of people into new agreements. If a small, but widely used section of code was licensed under the GPL and the new version required additional profit restrictions, it would affect every project which used that code, as well as the projects which used those projects ect. At the same time, if the license is changed in such a way that it benefits the users then that too can affect a large group. The main ethical issue is the amount of power given to the writers of the license and how it is used.


What ethical considerations are highlighted by the patent sharing/protection agreement between Microsoft and Novell?

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