Talk:Copyleft

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Contents


[edit] New terms and symbols

Proposals for new terms and symbols for copyleft and related concepts should not appear on Wikipedia or any encyclopedia, but is work that is done elsewhere.

[edit] Creative Commons

Material about Creative Commons belongs at Creative Commons.

[edit] Etymology dispute with "Free software" article

from talk:Free software

According to wikipedia 'copyleft' was coined by Don Hopkins and not Richard Stallman. The Free software and the Copyleft articles now disagree with eachother. --arcade

This could be tough to sort out -
The Origin and Practice of "Copyleft" - http://www.olypen.com/harmon/fdl/copyl.htm -
"Transcopyright: Pre-Permission for Virtual Republishing" by Theodor Holm Nelson - http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/transcopyright/transcopy.html - (says "the terms "shareware" and "copyleft," declared by Bob Wallace and Richard Stallman respectively, have come to represent their respective permission doctrines, both [are] now widely accepted and used.")

Both of those attributions are wrong. "Shareware" predates Wallace as well--I know that I personally saw the term applied to, for example, things like ARC (the original pre-Phil Katz version) long before Wallace's PCWrite. Both should, however, be credited with refining and popularizing the terms. --LDC

and none of this has anything to do with viral licenses, which apply as much to patents or to music as to software.

It was coined by Don Hopkins without question, then popularized by Stallman. Stallman says so himself on his website. --AxelBoldt

correct, Don Hopkins wrote it on an envelope - "copyleft: no rights reserved". Don validates the story - I heard it from him firsthand.

[edit] The "viral" issue

[edit] The related "Viral license" article

I redirected viral license to this article. There were a couple of things wrong with that article: First, it mentioned trademark and patent law, but viral licenses don't exist in that realm. Second, it was blatantly non-NPOV, in that it called viral license "desirable and popular" and used the phrase "degrade to an open source project", making the additional mistake of assuming that open source projects cannot be copylefted. AxelBoldt, Tuesday, April 2, 2002

"it mentioned trademark and patent law, but viral licenses don't exist in that realm." This is false. You have clearly not researched the subject. MIT and the Government of China both employ viral patent licenses requiring reliable favorable terms for re-licensing improvements to works they license.
That is not viral. It would be viral if they required improvements to be licensed under the same terms that they originally licensed their patents under. What you describe is just a regular deal: I give you something, if you do something useful with it, you need to give it to me cheap. No virus whatsoever. How about a similarly mistaken trademark example? AxelBoldt
" it was blatantly non-NPOV, in that it called viral license "desirable and popular" and used the phrase "degrade to an open source project", making the additional mistake of assuming that open source projects cannot be copylefted." This is your ideological problem. Viral licenses such as the MIT and Chinese and GNU license are all quite popular, and must be considered desirable by *someone* or they wouldn't be. If you want it clarified to whom it is desirable or popular, fine, but destroying the article over that issue amounts to vandalism.
if you call something "desirable" even though even in the hacker community there's a lot of debate about its merits, let alone in the software industry at large, you have to face your own biases. Viral licenses are not popular, except in a small segment of society. You are smart enough to see through your "must be considered desirable by someone or they wouldn't be", so I don't need to comment. The V-word doesn't help your case in any way. AxelBoldt
Look up the open source definition and the approved licenses, you will find GPL. AxelBoldt

Copyleft is not the same as viral. The LGPL is a copyleft license that is not viral: all derivatives of the work must be free, but they can be combined with non-free works. GPL is both copyleft and viral, all derivatives, and anything which they are combined must be free (hence, viral, because it attaches itself to the larger project). So, if a library is GPL'ed, then any program that calls it must be free. If it is LGPL'ed, non-free stuff can use it. DanKeshet, Tuesday, April 2, 2002

LGPL is actually Copyleft license but not a strong one since it permits linking with non-free modules. See "Various Licenses and Comments about Them" [2]. BTW this doesn't change the Copyleft vs Virality issue, that is, Copyleft is neither good or evil, it's just a general practice and the way you consider it depends only on your point of view.
The "virality" of a Copyleft license refers to the fact that requires all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well. It refers to its persistent and propagative character. Again, it may be a desiderable or undesiderable thing, according to your point of you. What one may call virality another one may call it strenght.
This being said, the LGPL is still a Copyleft license but is "less viral" than GPL.Ncrfgs 21:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Only derivative works of GPL'd works fall under GPL. You can "combine" GPL code with anything, but if the combination constitutes a derivative work, then you'll have to GPL the whole code. The LGPL explicitly allows certain derivative works to be non-LGPL. In that sense, LGPL is "less copyleft" and also "less viral" than GPL. AxelBoldt


Would any book that references the Wikipedia therefore defect to copyleft status. I'm not talking any encyclopedias; I mean things like biographies and novels, which might quote it or something. -Litefantastic 01:19, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Quotation is usually excluded from copyright as fair use. Copyleft only works by using copyright. Copying large chunks is a different matter though. Tim Ivorson 07:49, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Copyleft licenses are sometimes called viral copyright licenses because any works derived from a copylefted work must themselves be copylefted."

The only one I saw calling copyleft licenses "viral", is Microsoft, saying that "theses are sometime called viral". Did you ever saw someone else calling it this way ?

Agreed, copyleft is not the same as viral. That's why "viral license" was a separate article. Many patent and trademark licenses by consortia etc. are viral too. DanKeshet is right that GPL is "both copyleft and viral", and makes no reference to patents, e.g. does not require re-integration of patentable improvements, nor trademarks, e.g. does not require crediting GNU in its name, as per Stallman's absurd complaint that this "should" happen for Linux after 20 years of never so requiring such "trademark-like" recognition.


[edit] Microsoft on "viral" terminology

"The view that copyleft licenses are viral is supported by Microsoft. They say that if your product uses GPLed code, your product automatically escapes your control, becomes GPLed right away and you can't do anything about it."

Does anyone have a citation for Microsoft making that claim (the second sentence)? Anthony DiPierro 03:08, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[3] I've heard Microsoft execs talk about this too. I'm sure you could find some choice quotes by searching Google news. --mav
First of all, I was talking about the second sentence. Of course Microsoft thinks that copyleft is viral. In fact, it is. I believe this is a strawman. The closest statement I can come up with is "If the licensee modifies GPL code or includes any GPL code in a larger work, the entire new or aggregate work becomes subject to the terms of the GPL." Now while technically that's perhaps not correct, if you don't agree to license the work under the GPL you could be sued for copyright infringement. If people really want to unnecessarily bash Microsoft I guess a direct quote would do. But the focus of the statement above is on the words "automatically", "right away", and "you can't do anything about it." Microsoft even uses the term "presumably" in the sentence "Hence, a commercial software product that incorporates any amount of source code from a product subject to the viral GNU General Public License presumably becomes "infected" with GPL restrictions." I mean, sure, you can break the law and and not subject your code to the license, but this is a really fine point. Anthony DiPierro 13:45, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Seven months have gone by, and no one has given a citation for the second sentence. I'm removing it. anthony (see warning) 19:32, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Weasel terms in viral desirable paragraph

I was looking over the "viral desirable" paragraph, this one in the current version:

Many feel that copyleft licenses are desirable and popular for shared works precisely because they are viral, and apply to all derivative works, which are thus "infected" by the requirement to re-integrate changes deemed desirable by any party down the line. This requirement is seen as important because it ensures uniform license terms and free access, and makes copyleft projects resistant to unnecessary forking because all maintainers, of the original work or other versions, may use any modifications released by anyone. Useful changes tend to be merged, and different versions are maintained only to the extent that they are useful. Without the "viral" license, variant terms can apply to the forks and derivative works can be controlled commercially by the parties that extend or translate them, which can be considered as some of the disadvantages of non-copyleft "open source" projects. It is thought that Linux has not suffered the same fragmentation as Unix because it is copylefted.

Besides a bit of pro-copyleft POV, which I suppose is to be expected, there are a lot of classic weasel terms in here:

Many feel that copyleft licenses are desirable...
This requirement is seen as important...
which can be considered as some of the disadvantages...
It is thought that Linux has not suffered...'

You get the idea. While this material isn't exactly invented by the editor, it would be great to find some authoritative sources, like Stallman, to cite instead of this passive voice and wishy-washy attribution. Deco 06:52, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Deco,
Ever read User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles? Well, in point 5 there Jimbo defends the viral nature of GFDL, contrary to the *official* FSF/Stallman line of proclaiming copyleft licenses not being viral. Well there you have two demi-gods, oops I mean benevolent dictators, oops I mean constitutional monarchs defending opposing views. Mind you, I think both are right. Have no idea whether that (or something similar) was the cause of the weaseliness in the paragraph you quote.
The "advantages when forking" explanation should best be kept, it is referred to from another section in the article.
But I agree, the paragraph should be rewritten in a clearer tone, do you have any proposition? For me authoritative sources like Stallman getting involved is not a prerogative, and might, if you read other content of this talk page, possibly make things more complicated rather than simpler.
--Francis Schonken 02:22, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV?

Under "Is copyleft viral?", second paragraph:

"regardless of whether the viral assertions themselves add value to the individual work" seems to me to imply that copyleft license inherently add value to a work, something which would no doubt be disputed by opponents of the concept! Propose to revise to "regardless of the positive or negative effects of the viral assertions themselves"

On the other hand I'm probably wrong since I'm pretty new to this thing, hence why I posted it here instead of editing!

Comments etc?

That is POV and does have an underlying implication like you said. The whole section there is full of weasel words and unsourced strawman arguments. It's also yet another point->counter-point back and forth criticism that pretends to be NPOV, but utlimately ends up promoting one view over the others. Nathan J. Yoder 16:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I think, the paragraph under discussion is correct. Both computer and biological viruses do not bring any use to the infected victim or attacked software. And I do not know the real virus, asking if the user agrees to accept the infection. Only at least partially userful program can afford this. Differently, the used work with the copyleft license must add some value and be useful in the development of the new derived work. This is the reason why it is used in the derived work. Without bringing the additional value, both the previous work and its licence are not used and the problem should not arise. I think, the chapter correctly describes the doubts about the possibly inappropriate use of the words like "virus" and "infected" in the context that the copylefted primary work infects the derived work. One may argue that it is the license (and not the original work) that infects, but the whole combination (work + license) still have enough value to start with them. Following the copyleft license is more like some kind of price the that previous developers expect you to pay for using they work. They believe that work would not be developed, or developed worse, without the previous contributors paying the same price. The sentence "installing Windows infects you by the obligation to pay the price of the legal copy to Microsoft" would be equally true and equally strange Audriusa 14:29, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The sentence, "The term viral is used as an analogy of computer viruses to create misunderstanding and a fear of using copylefted free software" in the current first paragraph is not NPOV. I'm in favor of removing it. KT322 19:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I've attributed the comment, as it was based on the cited reference. --69.173.175.94 21:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does Open Source equal Copyleft?

"open source projects cannot be copylefted" - if they could, they would be "free software projects" or "free source projects" - a much more specific designation that includes by definition the viral terms. It is your own confusion of copyleft and viral license terms that is causing the problem.

---

Suggestion for a breakdown:

copyleft more or less as is

free_software redirects to free source

forget that right now. Don't make up new terms that nobody uses. AxelBoldt
Stallman himself has referred to documentation and code jointly as "source", and http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_1/mann/ seems to demonstrate that in Axel's view, Steve Mann is "nobody". I'm tired of your propaganda, Axel, it doesn't seem to be leading anywhere in particular. Stick to math please, you seem to understand that.

free_source deals with both documentation and software and mentions patents and other instructions - there are already GPL'd patents - see openpatents.org

there are no GPL'd patents, because the concept doesn't make any sense. Read openpatents.org again. AxelBoldt
It's you who doesn't seem to want to read: "Raph Levien has licensed his patents for GPL use." http://www.openpatents.org/patents/ 15 are listed.

A new thing called the OPL will be a viral license written properly for patents based on patent pool models.


Nope, he was right the first time; the GPL is a copyright license, and only a copyright license. What Mr. Levein has done is to issue a patent license of his own that basically says "You may use these patented techniques to create software, so long as that software's copyrights are released under the GPL". The rest of the patents on openpatents.org are released under the "OPL" patent license. --LDC

open_source contrasted with free source - the guarantee of "free" ensured by viral_license terms that "open" does not required


viral_license characterized more generally as the broad class of licensing terms e.g. in the Java or X11 consortium licenses which control those trademarks, e.g. in the IBM or MIT or Chinese govt patent licensing terms, e.g. in openpatents.org, e.g. in trade union use of instructions and training programs which usually require re-integration of improvements, e.g. in service licenses which require non-solicitation for competing services through the service itself, all of which seem to guarantee:

1. equal unharassed use for dedicated users of the service/license/patent/trademark/copyright who are not seeking an advantage for themselves at the cost of the other users, e.g. by extending "open source" and then patenting the extension, e.g. by bugging yahoo users with spam for hotmail.


2. a common simple procedure for extending/improving and re-integrating work, e.g. the Java or X11 compatibility tests.

3. an added-value market for features that do not affect interoperability, e.g. as in IP.

[edit] Comment on first paragraph

"Copyleft refers to a concept [...] to ensure perpetual availability to the public of a certain piece of information [...]"

This is not a very good definition of Copyleft, nor of a Free Software License: the above statement describes something akin to the Apple License, or the Plan 9 license, whereby modifications to the source code are required to be published, infringing the freedom of an end-user from modifying code for private use.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html

permission to modify?

- ND

You don't need permission: be bold in updating pages. It seems to me that you are right; this should be rephrased somewhat. AxelBoldt 17:47 Aug 23, 2002 (PDT)

[edit] Removeal of "Mother Nature"

I removed some material which sounded to me like bullshit, including the following:

some who opposed genetically modified food suggest that if some entity (Earth, its biosphere, or "Mother Nature") or a foundation representing same, were recognizing as holding a copyright in the genome of each naturally-evolved species, then all minor genetic modifications of same would be 'derivative works'.

I don't doubt that someone has suggested this somewhere, but the chances of "Mother Nature" being recognized as a holder of copyrights are unlikely, approaching zero. Until the person who added this can supply credible references, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. -- CYD

[edit] Tualha's changes

Just rewrote the beginning. The article as a whole is still rather a mess - disorganized, perticularly regarding the history, and containing plenty of redundant material. But I want to see how my new intro flies before tackling the rest.

I took out the specific examples of the "similar licenses" because one of them was the BSD License, which is not a copyleft license at all (as the article itself notes elsewhere).

Tualha 01:11, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've reworked the rework, in part because you wrote that you can't use copyrighted works without a license, which isn't a very complete summary of the situation, in part because copylefted works are copyrighted. Took the opportunity to put some of the history nearer the top so it explains the origins and intent better.

BSD isn't a copyleft license but it is a similar license, with similar objectives: making better tools available to all. It just doesn't use copyleft as one of the tools, so it's more suitable for some purposes and less suitable for others. Jamesday 21:26, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] copyleft characterizes free software

Copyleft is one of the key features in free software/open source licences, and is the licenses' legal framework to ensure that derivatives of the licensed work stay free/open.

Why include open source here? I think of copyleft as the key distinction between free and non-free open source, so these lines should drop the "open" references. Can an Open Source licence include copyleft features and not be free software? Even if it can, that is not typical in my experience. --NealMcB 22:48, 2004 May 24 (UTC)

[edit] copyleft anniversary in 2004?

It sounds like the 20th anniversary of copyleft is in 2004. Anyone know the date? More of the history? Commerative events? NealMcB 23:03, 2004 May 24 (UTC)

[edit] Reworking of inititial definition --Francis Schonken 07:12, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I reworked the initial paragraphs of the article which define what copyleft is. While the reworking was rather intrusive (e.g. putting most of it in a new "methods for copylefting" section), I keep the original initial paragraphs here:

Copyleft is an additional (and irrevocable) provision in a copyright license that otherwise already grants certain freedoms to the licensee. These preconditional freedoms are, generally, the free unlimited use, modification and redistribution of copies of the original work. The distinctive condition to that license for being also "copyleft" is that any modified version of the work, if redistributed (thus being a derivative work), must carry the same permissions (i.e. license terms), and must be made available in a form which facilitates modification. For software, this facilitating form is considered to be a synonym to source code, pre-supposing that all necessary compilation software is also freely available.

In normal speech copyleft is also used as a pars pro toto to indicate license conditions that include all the preconditional freedoms mentioned above (often also including freedom regarding sale of media and/or of auxiliary materials, e.g. documentation, which may carry a different copyright license), together with the actual copyleft condition.

Note that copyleft generally needs to hinge to copyright law for implementing an enforcable system for derivative works to be also released with a copyleft license (so "copyleft" pre-supposes at least some framework of "copyright" law, contrary to the popular belief that copyleft wants "to do away" with copyright as a whole). Also generally copyleft implies that the names of all contributors to a work keep attached to that work. These contributors are - for reasons of protecting the copyleft mechanism by copyright law - the (pro forma) copyright holders.

So long as all of those wanting to modify the work accept the terms, one of the net effects aimed at by copyleft is to facilitate successive improvement by a wide range of contributors. Those who are unwilling or unable to accept the terms are prohibited from creating derivative works.

While what is said above somehow ties the definition of copyleft to its first recorded implementation (i.e. the GNU GPL license), a more universal and abstract definition of copyleft would be:

Copyleft is that property of a human creation that aims at preventing that the use, the propagation and the modification of that creation would be hindered by Intellectual Rights

In defense of the rework: the "abstract" definition is in effect more understandable than the circumstantial one with which this article used to start; I used more human-understandable words in describing how copyleft works in practice, instead of propping all that in a rather intelligible first paragraph;

[edit] "Art - documents" section

[edit] Mentioning Wikipedia

From the "Art - documents" section.

What does all this:

These specific GFDL techniques are not used by the Wikipedia licence, however:
  • The Wikipedia Main Page acts as a kind of title page, not unlike the GFDL "Front cover text" idea.
  • More importantly, the attention of contributors to Wikipedia articles is drawn to the NPOV principle, which hinges on broader (somehow intuitive) notions like "relevance" and "(relative) importance", see e.g. the NPOV tutorial, where following advice can be found (in "Space and balance" section):
For an entry in an encyclopedia, ideas also need to be important. The amount of space they deserve depends on their importance and how many interesting things can be said about them.
(note that importance is not defined in Wikipedia, while the Wikipedia definition of relevance has more vague edges than definition - an unexplained "depending on context" -, which is an indication that these notions indeed depend largely on some sort of intuition)
  • Wikipedia at the "wikipedia.org" webdomain is also a "unique object" in the full sense of the word (comparable to the uniqueness that some works of art have), from which follows a possibility of being subject to destructive behaviour: to which is responded with policies that try to find a balance between freedom and protection, see e.g. "Disruptive Users" section in Wikipedia:Policy thinktank. This can be seen as the way the broader notion of "respect" is applied in Wikipedia.

have to do with copyleft?

This should be deleted unless somebody can come up with something that clarifies why any of this is related to copyleft. --Kop 21:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

--

- This was added by me, in fact I returned here today, because after all I felt it wasn't OK yet, and I wanted to rework the part.

- I wanted to clarify two things:

  • GFDL when applied in another context than art is even in that case less straightforward than GPL applied to software. This difference is remarked upon e.g. by Linus Torvalds in his last Business Week interview (see hyperlink above in the article - there Linus says something in the sense that he personally doesn't believe that copyleft will ever work in art, for reasons that were already explained in this article), but I have references where Linus is even clearer on the fact that he sees more complication in GFDL than in GPL (talking in a technical context, so outside art). In this sense this was meant as an addition to the previous paragraph in the "Art & documents" section, where the specificity of Copyleft in art was treated.
  • By way of example: how Wikipedia adresses these issues that have to be addressed when applying Copyleft outside the context of software, e.g. protection against vandalism while unique object; trying to give support to contributors in understanding the intuitive "broader notions" on which it relies; etc...: I tried to construct a practical example regarding what in the previous paragraph was defined as a rather vague description of "broader notions", so as to be able to make more understandable what that was about. I used Wikipedia as example, because I supposed that was the example that was easiest to understand for the readers of this encyclopedia, also because I could use internal links for referencing (external links have the disadvantage of being less secure).

- The update I wanted to perform today is because I found some "Wikipedia:" articles where "importance" and "relevance" are better defined (so basicly I was going to cut the remark immediately following the citation, or rewrite it) - and I was going to try to make the whole thing more understandable, because I thought I hadn't succeeded yet the double goal described above.

Kop, does this give the clarification you asked about? And of course, I'd be interested to know, whether after these clarifications you think yes or no something like this should be included in the article?

--Francis Schonken 08:15, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

--

Nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as an example, or the GDFL, so long as the points explain something about copyleft. Comments specific to Wikipedia or the GDFL are best made on their respective pages. For instance, being supportive of Wikipedia contributors would seem to have little to do with copyleft. It's all in the language, maybe there's a way to make such a connection clear. Don't let me stop you adding this back to the article and trying again. This entire article is hard to work with as it's not particularly focused nor are the sentences tight. When it's hard to tell what a sentence means, it's even harder to tell how it relates to the topic addressed by it's paragraph. Fewer words ==> more clear and punchy. Writing good sentences is hard. -- kop 20:00, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The unique object example

Someone inserted the following in the "Art — documents" section, after the paragraph with the (fictional) "Andy Warhol painting" example:

I am not sure this is really a good example and I am not sure the above assertion re hassle-free and cheap copying holds.
It may not be possible to have a "full copyleft" on an "item which you do not own". This of course, could just boil down to endless arguments about definitions.
Let's assume though that somehow you can have a "full copyleft" on an item which someone else owns. So, I hang the painting above. On a wall. I arrange things so it is physically impossible to come near or touch the painting. What cant you do? Make the best copies you can. If this means hiring an expensive professional art impersonator, so be it. Nothing in the copyleft definition talks of low priced copies. Make derivative works. Photographs, videos, etc.
In the cases we are used to, do you ever have access to the creator's original? Doesn't the creator keep his originals and make and hand out copies? Don't you basically excercise your copyleft rights on copies?

Replies:

  1. "hassle-free and cheap copying", e.g. Linus Torvalds alludes to this in one of his interviews (will try to find out which one) - I think LT is an accepted "authority" to make assertions about the nature of "copyleft". Note that the paragraph with this example is primarily intended to make people help understand why most copyleft licences applied to Arts MAKE THIS DIFFERENCE between the original and the copies (they do, go ask Creative Commons, etc, if you think they shouldn't, but as long as they do an example clarifying what this is about is in its place in the copyleft article)
  2. "ownership" vs "having full copyleft access": since "copyleft" usually hinges on "copyright" laws (which make difference between "ownership" of an item, and ownership of the "Intellectual Rights", hey, that's why it's called a "licence"), copyleft, unavoidably, has the same distinction: a painting could e.g. be state-owned, which means it is owned by all citizens of that state - if the "unique object" is copylefted by the owner (the state), that means that all citizens (none of which are "fully owning" the painting, but all could be made "full copyleft licensee" by the license conditions) can go ahead with peinture brulée etc, without "legal" impediment. "Making the original unreachable" is not the issue, that is just like publishing compiled code without making the "source code" available, and thus shortcutting the "full copyleft".
  3. Well whatever reasoning you make, there is a difference between "arts" and "software": "professional art impersonator" (who needs artistic talent) vs. programmer (who is rather helped by engineering skills) remains even a difference in your modified example.
  4. "In the cases we are used to, do you ever have access to the creator's original?" - Here you make several logical errors: well, the "original" of what I'm typing right now will be in a database on the other side of the ocean less than a few seconds after I click the "submit" button; the "draft" of that original (which still might reside some time in the cache of the computer I'm typing this on) will soon be annihilated, so there is truly only ONE original to which you (whoever reads this) has access. So, for wikipedia the "copyleft rights" are exerced on the original. See the bottom section of my user page, elaborating on this. Another logical error you make is that in order to build the argument in the last paragraph of your comment above, you need to imply that "hassle-free and cheap copying" is available, which is *exactly* the difficulty in plastic arts (especially the 3D-ones, and the ones involving more than can be easily "digitally photographed")... QED. To draw the attention to that issue of the "difference in practicality" when applying the copyleft idea was the chief intention of the example. --Francis Schonken 10:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] First sentence (Copyleft short definition, before the start of the article)

It doesn't make any sense as it stands now. Can someone fix this?! - Ta bu shi da yu 01:15, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It makes sense to me, but it is very heavy. Maybe it would be better to start on a lighter note, like telling it is a pun on copyright? Per Abrahamsen 08:21, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)
  • (Francis Schonken 09:18, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC):) I intend to make a few minor adjustments to the initial definition of copyleft. Also I will insert an unvisible HTML comment in the "edit" mode of the article inviting people to come here to discuss the definition, before changing it for the nth time. The copyleft definition of the initial paragraph looks pretty good to me as it is now, I propose only following minor adjustments:
    • "...copyleft is a pun": I think today copyleft is so much more than a pun: I propose to change to: "...copyleft started out as a pun..."
    • second sentence of first paragraph should be in my view still be a bit more neutral. I refer to wikipedia:the perfect article, where it is advised to make the initial definition as short and neutral as possible, while all different approaches to the initial concept can be treated further in the article (applying "space and balance" as explained in the wikipedia:NPOV tutorial). Well, copyright law in general exists in order to restrict the right to make copies of a particular work IS ideological. In the case of Paganini copyright law was an IMPROVEMENT while it extended the right to make copies of a particular work. I could elaborate that as one example out of many (just ask me!), the only thing I want to say is that the use of the word restrict in the initial paragraph as it is now is tendentious (POV if you like), which makes it perfectly eligible to be treated in the "ideological debate" section, but not in the initial definition. Don't know yet exactly how to work around this in the short definition, but I'll try (and return here if it doesn't work).
copyleft is not a neutral term, and cannot in itself be described in the neutral pov. The best you can do is to make the pov explicit. "The proponents of copyleft see copyright primarily as a mean to restrict copying, thus" Per Abrahamsen
    • (Francis Schonken 10:01, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)): had to perform another adjustment: the definition was not correct, while it was a definition of "open source" (software) in general, not the definition of what is specifically added to that by copyleft (so it appeared not to be a definition of copyleft at all). Sorry guys, copyleft is a non-trivial concept: for me all the other "importance" of Wikipedia (however important!) is minor compared to producing a definition of copyleft that is as well understandable by any non-specialised person, as that it is neutral and short, and of course: undebatably correct.


I removed the reference to other kinds of IPR from the initial paragraph, it was premature (the origin of the term was certainly only about copyright, even if other people have extended it later) and slightly provocative, given that RMS does not recognise IP as a useful concept (it includes too diverse concept for his taste). I also reorganized the difinition so we only have one user. I believe copyleft is a very trivial concept, and if the first paragraph does not give that impression, it is not formulated good enough. Oh, and I made the pov on copyright explicit as FC pointed out. Per Abrahamsen 09:04, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)

(more ideas added by Francis Schonken 10:43, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC):)

  • I corrected a small typo in the initial paragraph as it stands now ("way restrict" -> "way to restrict").
  • "copyleft (...) cannot in itself be described in the neutral pov": Well, if that were true it should not be in Wikipedia at all according to present importance guidelines. The whole Wikipedia philosophy somewhere hinges on the idea that however "POV" an idea is, it can be described in a NPOV way. Also: my point was not that a completely, and forever "Amen", NPOV short definition of copyleft is possible, only that I want to co-operate to come as near as possible to a NPOV definition of copyleft that is suitable (and relatively stable) for the present day.
  • "...given that RMS does not recognise IP as a useful concept": Richard M. Stallman deserves all possible credits for putting the idea of copyleft on the world map, but nonetheless he does not own the concept of copyleft: even if he and/or FSF would own URL's like copyleft.org or whatever, it would be entirely against Stallman's own philosophy to say he owned the concept. And even if he owned the concept, there is a distinct Wikipedia guideline telling to avoid controversy over content of wikipedia articles by considering that no faction owns the content of a wikipedia article: so even if Stallman would own the copyleft concept, he is in no way the exclusive owner of the wikipedia article describing that concept. Or, to put the same thing otherwise, using an analogy: Richard Stallman's baby has grown up, and it proves to be a rebellious teenager by now. In wikipedia the abbreviation of "Richard M. Stallman's point of view" becomes "RMS's POV", i.e., according to the NPOV tutorial, a POV that has every right to be in wikipedia, be it in balance with other POV's (if there are any).
  • Well, there are other POV's, notably:
    • Linus Torvalds' POV, e.g. describing the non-copylefted BSD not as something "bad", but as "something different from what we try to do"; and replying to someone sharing some ideas about not getting wiser from RMS's replies on a copyright issue: "I can feel the pain", further explaining he is entirely happy with GPL as a copyleft licence, but further does not want to have to do anything with RMS (if he can avoid it).
    • The Share-alike POV: which is a slightly different view on copyleft than the RMS/FSF "official" view (i.e. Creative Commons defines some things as copyleft, which would never pass as copyleft in RMS's eyes).
    • Godfried-Willem Raes' POV, who in the copyleft section of the website on the concert organisation he owns describes his idea that copyleft is the same as doing away with copyright altogether...
    • etc...
  • Frankly, I don't care all that much what RMS thinks about IP in general: I only look around me and see copyleft is used as a concept in the discussion in the European Union about the new patent law, etc... But please do note I wouldn't object a bit to have a mentioning of Stallman's view on IP in the "ideological debate" section of the article.
  • Giving my view on the question whether or not the "initial short definition" of copyleft should hint at the history of how the concept became notable: in my view this is not necessesary if a more understandable & correct definition can be given without referring to those historical issues (these historical references also kind of have a limiting effect on the short definition: all attempts I tried myself to make a definition based on this turned out to be either limiting the copyleft concept too much to software, and/or too lengthy and complicated - at least unintelligble at first reading for a not predisposed encyclopedia reader -, and/or too entangled in the ideological issues from the outset of the article, etc...). Note that there is already a fairly elaborate section about these historical issues in the article itself.
  • Giving my view on whether or not "IP" can be used in the initial definition: I think "IP" can be used in the short, initial definition of copyleft, if that is useful for a bold and neutral definition; but please do note my own propositions were to use Intellectual rights, which in wikipedia is a different article than the IPR/IP/Intellectual property article - IR refers more to the 19th century discussion when the decisions were taken whether or not to separate "copyright" from other, already existing, Intellectual rights like patents. The IR article also more hints at "unwaiverable obligations" in the European view on IP/IR related matters: this concept of "unwaiverable obligations" is useful in defining copyleft, that also starts from an "unwaiverable obligation", namely the obligation to use the same license when publishing a derivative work (IP is more concentrated on being "owner", confusing with the idea that one can do as one pleases with what one owns - which is not the case in general with IP, but that takes a lot more explaining to do).
  • Replying to "The proponents of copyleft see copyright primarily as a mean to restrict copying,...": well I am a proponent of copyleft, but I don't see copyright primarily as a means to restrict copying. I rather see traditional copyrighting as an alternate system, with its advantages and disadvantages. So do many other proponents of copyleft: e.g. when their name is Linus, or in other cases, when they don't have a problem earning money with a job that creates IP for their company (without them owning any of that IP). In fact I put considerable thinking in how it could be made possible that someone who is e.g. a computer programmer or an artist, and has an ideological problem with producing any of this kind of non-copylefted IP, could make a decent living for himself in a strict copyleft approach for everything he produces (both in intent and in legal correctness). That's when I decided to start the "commercial exploitation" subsection, now at the bottom of the copyleft article.

[edit] Intro change

I changed the first line of the intro to be something hopefully more relevent and closer to a definition of copyleft, giving some useful context before we digress in the second sentence. I did read the warning comment, but I'm hoping there is no objection to this change. Deco 02:38, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] earlier reference to Open Source?

I note that there was some discussion earlier on about technical differences between open source and other types of software, but as a newcomer, reading this article for the first time I was thinking "Why isn't there a link to the "Open Source" page for ages until I eventually found it in section 4.

My feeling is that there should be a mention and a link to "Open Source" much earlier in the article, somewhere in the intro, before we get into all the technical details of where the term "copyleft" comes from and what kind of things it can apply to. PaulHammond 13:57, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Paul,

I suppose the approach in this article has to do with:

  • "copyleft" being broader than "a type of software". Copyleft can apply to a variety of things like "art", "wikipedia content", etc... "Open Source", on the other hand, is rather used to designate software exclusively (ever seen the "source code" of an MP3?).
  • "Open Source Software" only partially overlaps with "copylefted software" (many "Open Source" licenses are not "copyleft").
  • Richard Stallman and FSF, who put copyleft as an idea on the world map, prefer speaking about "free software", explaining "free as in freedom", instead of using the term "Open Source" software (which they abhorr).
  • "Open Source" software was, I think, not all that used as a term when FSF/Richard Stallman produced their first copyleft licenses (so it is missing from section 2, describing the origin of "copyleft").
  • "Open Source Software" was particularily promoted from around the turn of the century on by Eric Raymond (and others) that wanted to abandon the idea of copyleft being the exclusive or preferable way to produce OSS.

Either way, although "Open Source" and "Copyleft" are often loosely used as synonyms, the links between the two concepts are sparser (and with more tension) than is generally perceived.

I don't know whether this answers what you were asking about, if not, just ask more (or try to improve the article where you think fit).

--Francis Schonken 01:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS: some of this is discussed in Free/Libre Open Source Software too - maybe that's more the article you were looking for (centers on software). Note that that article might benefit from an update too! (e.g. "Libre Software" was - for some time - a separate European episode, not bound by the Free Software movement - so "FOSS" only became "FLOSS" when the "Libre" movement was taken up too) --Francis Schonken 12:56, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising under "See Also"?

Why is Creative Commons listed under "See Also"? This does not directly relate to copyleft at all, and is more like an advertisement for the Creative Commons than anything else (and it certainly does not fit in with the other links there). If you object feel free to change it back, but I'm going to take a bushwhacker to it right now.

And now that I look at it, the same goes for "Magnatune". Let's keep the advertising out, please. -- mjk

I put CC and Magnatune back in. They are both orgs that promote and use copyleft licenses, and are in the external links section. MikeCapone 08:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just because they promote and use copyleft licenses does not make them relevent to the discussion of what copyleft is (the whole point of the article). If we're putting them under the "See also" links, I suppose that means that we should be putting links to every organization that promotes and uses copyleft licenses under the "See also" links as well, right? --mjk
No, just the really really famous ones — like Creative Commons. They've become nearly as well-known as the FSF of late. Magnatune is less well-known, but more remarkable here for being the best-known company applying copyleft ideas to a the medium of music. Take a look at these Google News searches:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=creative+commons&btnG=Search+News
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=magnatune&btnG=Search+News
I think they should stay. Deco 06:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Agree.SR - RE

[edit] Compatibility graph

A compatibility graph for copyleft licenses would be awesome; right now it's so difficult to tell if you can relicense a work under another copyleft license. - McCart42 (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Political left/right?

I've always sort of wondered if someone intended the term "copyleft" to indicate a politically left-wing idea. The GPL never struck me as of left-wing inspiration; more libertarian than anything. But I could see someone who identified with the "libertarian left" as coming up with the name.

If this is not the case (and nothing in the article suggests it is the case), then would it be reasonable to add a sentence explicitly disclaiming the connection? I have to admit I don't know how you'd source it. --Trovatore 18:20, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

It is the first time I have heard the left in copyleft associated with the left in left-wing politics. Which indicate that maybe we won't need to mention the lack of an association explicitly, the idea doesn't come up often. However, if you read the GNU manifesto you will find that inspiration for the copyleft is socialist in nature (cooperation is better than competition). That the same license also happens to find fertile ground among libertarians is a happy accident.--Per Abrahamsen 16:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
It is more than just a happy coincidence. The liberty free software protects is the same wether you are a social liberal or an economic liberal ( see the article on liberalism ). Thus it shouldn't be a surprise that free software finds support among liberals from both right and left. So well, I would argue that it is not really a matter of wether you are economically left or right wing, but rather wether you are socially liberal or conservative. Or in other words: "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. Think of free as in ``free speech, not ``free beer." 137.205.192.27 02:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyleft and stupidity

a "copyleft" license is not a concept made up by ESR or the open source community. Infact, quite the opposite. The name is however an obvious one coined by a particular stoner hippy with the initials "ESR". For this matter, they have no right to claim credit for inventing the concept. newspapers have done that for centuries. they buy articles from other papers and circulate them with the attached copyright. but anyways, I find it absolutely annoying that people say a term is accepted in the community simply by its use. People quote other people all the time but that does not mean they accept the term. And just because someone already has fame doesn't make everything they do or say famous automatically.

Very unencyclopedic.Fsdfs 09:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Eh, what are you talking about? The only part of your rant I can understand is the claim that ESR coined the term copyleft, which is false. --Per Abrahamsen 16:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs a lot of work, no?

I see that there are disputes between some of the people working on this, but this article neeeds a lot of work. So I'll try to be bold. I'll try to explain my edits here. I will try to reduce the size of the article. This will not be difficult since there is a lot of redundant information in this article. I'll try to stay as uncontroversial as possible by deleting content that (a) belongs in anther article, (b) exists in the article it belongs in, and (c) the version that's in the right article is of higher quality. Criticisms and questions about my edits are sought. Gronky 17:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

When I'm finished (or after a while) I'll attach links from each of my explanations here to the diffs of my change so that what I'm doing is transparent. This section of the Talk page will become long, but in the end it should be moved to an archive. Gronky 17:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

As much as you'd like to pretend the OSS and FSS movements are the same, they really aren't. They have different philosophies and there's a very clear and obvious trends towards choosing BSD liek vs. copyleft licenses. Please stop editing all the various F/OSS articles to make them out to be the same, not only is it inaccuarte, you're giving reader the completely wrong idea of what's going on. I reinserted a rewritten form of the LGPL stuff too, because it was actually correct and its information wasn't duplicated elsehwere in the article, you basically just whitewashed it by deleting it entirely. Nathan J. Yoder 22:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Nathan, after Talk:Richard_Stallman, Talk:Open-source software, Talk:Alternative terms for free software, and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alternative_terms_for_free_software, I will not again allow my time to be consumed with answering all your questions and defending myself against all your allegations.
However, I do want to continue working on Wikipedia. One solution is for me to not disagree with you. This is not an optimal solution for Wikipedia, but since I have neither the energy, the time, or the stress tolerance to deal with another confrontation with you, for here and for now, that is what I will try to do.
If I do make any edits that could be seen as reverting a modification by you, I will explain my reasoning in my edit summary. If you reject that reasoning, just revert my edit - I will not be part of any revert wars.
I feel you have unfairly criticised me and my editting in your above comment, but because I am familiar with how time-consuming, energy-consuming, stressful, and fruitless any such discussion would be, I am unwilling to begin defending myself here against your accusations. I hope to meet any further unfair criticism from you with the same calmness and non-encouragement. Gronky 03:33, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed the public domain paragraph

Most of the information in this paragraph was inncorrect anyway. If there's no link elsewhere in the article, I'll look for somewhere to slot in a mention of the public domain link. Gronky 17:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed incorrect info on FS / OSS

The section "Copylefted and non-copylefted open source software" contained an incorrect description of the split between FS and OSS, plus a incorrect explantion of what happens when someone violates copyright. Gronky 17:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gave the Linus Torvalds section a title

The "Introduction" section was mostly about Linus Torvalds' comments on copyleft. I've put that section at the bottom of the page since, while he's the project manager and lead developer of a core package of the operating system, he didn't invent the term, the concept, the license - he just used the license, like many others did. The Linus Torvalds section should probably be renamed to allow quotes from other people too ...but then it's content would be fit for Wikipedia's sister project, Wikiquote, instead. Gronky 17:47, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It looked completely unencyclopedic to me. I also agree with Gronky's sentiments. If people want to retrieve the quote and place it at WikiQuote, then visit a revision from yesterday. --216.114.170.133 13:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed LGPL section

There was a paragrapha about the LGPL, but it was full of vague statements, and incorrect statements. I was planning to just move it to a more appropriate section (the weak vs strong section, where the LGPL is already mentioned) but after I trimmed the incorrect and duplicate bits, it was al gone. Gronky 17:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No legal cases, why?

I was just assuring my university student wife that copyleft had already been tested in court and validated a few times, and I went to the wikipedia to back up my claim.

Imagine my surprise when absolutely no court cases or legal decisions were referenced or even linked to! How can a concept so firmly based in law be completely divorced from the law in its description? IANAL, but it seems like a serious shortcoming to me. I'd like to see:

  • Current legal status in certain countries (USA, Finland, any other notables)
  • Legal precedents set by copyleft
  • Ongoing legal battles

you get the idea... Steve Rapaport 19:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyleft has never been tried in court, ever. There is no precedent. It may not even be possible to uphold it in court. Copyright law is regularly applied in copyright violation disputes, but so far violation of free licenses has been avoided only to be careful, on the theory that it might be enforcable. Part of the reason for this might be that usually only individuals release material under copyleft, and it's a rare individual who can afford to make a case against a corporation or other large violator. It's also difficult to acquire sufficient evidence to file suit when most corporate activity is conducted behind the curtains of trade secrets and non-disclosure. Deco 19:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
It's been violated frequently... It is just that everyone backed down and mended their ways or settled. I think I heard of one German case where the GPL was upheld, but I don't remember the exact case, and that would be Germnay anyway. --Maru (talk) Contribs 19:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The FSF believe in using legal action only as an absolutely last resort, when all other options for assuring compliance has been tried. It is a viewpoint that may be anti-American, but it seem natural to me (a Dane). This has probably influenced other owners of GPL'ed code, to also seek other resolutions before going to court.
The GPL was part of a MySQL case (with FSF as expect witness), I don't know the details of the case.--Per Abrahamsen 17:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section copied from pro-copyleft web site

Commercialization of copylefted art is essentially a copy of EFF: Making P2P Pay Artists, as mentioned by the article. I hope EFF copylefts their text. I wouldn't want there to be a copyright dispute over copyleft! Some of the text is somewhat unencyclopedic, for example It sounds obvious. Andjam 13:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The question is less about copyleft, and more about whether the EFF put their Web site materials in the public domain, or if EFF--or someone affiliated with EFF who is authorized to do so--submitted the material themselves. See Wikipedia:Copyrights.
I propose we delete most if not all of the section in question to a bare minimum to avoid a dispute over copyright or POV. --216.114.169.226 16:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple clarifying edits

'Fraid I think this article is awful. No way it should be a "featured article" in this state. I've spent an hour trying to make sense of it, and 2 more hours editing. It's very hard to understand. I'm going to try to deal with some of the grammar first. The result, in some cases, may be that the resulting prose no longer has the meaning its author intended. I hope that they will restore the intended meaning, rather than just revert my clarifying change.

1. Minor change to first para.

2. Stallman's GPL did not make anything possible that was not already possible. For example, someone else could have invented a similar licence.

3. Paragraph before "methods for copylefting" - I've tried to remove some ambiguity. I don't know if the resulting prose is /true/. Is it correct that the original GPL didn't "grant rights to the public at large"? Did the "This" actually refer to the original GPL, or to the GPL in general, or to some other action or creation of Stallman's? Perhaps this attempt at disambiguation will provoke someone into attending to the facts, if I my change has rendered the text incorrect.

4. Simplify language in "methods for copyrighting".

5. Simplify language in "these three freedoms".

6. "Other (additional or understood)licence conditions" - in what licence? This para's meaning is unclear, and I'm redrafting it. What doesx it mean to "guarantee the compilation of source code"?

7. "Definitional problems" - I think a de-facto standard is only a meaningful notion in a context where standards themselves are meaningful. Clause deleted.

8. Spelling. I wanted to go over the whole article, and impose consistency on the use of the variants "licence" and "license", in accordance with OED recommendations. Licence is the noun, license is the verb. However this may be an Atlantic problem, and I haven't done it. Is "license" the correct noun-form in american spelling? Does "licence" simply not occur as a word in american dictionaries?

9. "Strong and weak copyleft" - attempted to clean up the english, I hope I didn't destroy the meaning.

10. "While copyleft is not a term in law" - I tried to fix this as a minor edit. However this para seems to be the result of merging several people's prose on different subjects, and the result is still a mess.

11. Is it correct to say that the use of copyleft in industry is restricted to internal use? Software that is written for internal use isn't usually licensed at all, surely. I disambiguated, but I left this clause in place.

12. "[Code reuse]" - I butchered this paragraph. It stated the aims of software enginering badly, the reasoning linking copyleft to re-use was weak, and "is often cited" should be acompanied by a reference.

13. Deleted 2 paras starting with "some opponents of copyleft say". The attributed claim is so weak as to not be worth defending - if reinstated, the claim should be made stronger, so that at least there is something to defend. There's been at least one call to shorten the article, perhaps this helps.

14. Deleted 2 paras starting with "Note that the notion of copyleft". The argument in these paras is confusing, particularly since it seems to depend on the idea that a work that is a "unique object" is somehow intrinsically immune to abusive copyright violation. Also nobody has put forward the claim that copyleft solves all IP problems. It's all too vague.

15. "Copyleft licences for art" - First sentence (6-7 lines) removed, leaving the "in other words" sentence. If that doesn't summarise the deleted matter, then it was wrong in the first place. What remains seems to not be worth saying, but others may disagree.

16. Copyright/left isn't to do with "understandings". Violations are violations. If the licence requires attribution, non-attribution is a violation.

I'm giving up now. I've spent 2 hours on this, and I'm less than half way through. I don't have a clue if these changes will all just promptly be reverted. All of these changes have been aimed at clarifying and strengthening. The result may be worse than the original, in terms of what it says, hopefully because this process of clarification has exposed errors that were present before.

I'll come back to this work later, if these changes meet with approval.

MrDemeanour 12:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Deliberate copyleft violation

Is there a term for a corporatation that deliberately violates a copyleft?--Nowa 10:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no term for violating the concept of copyleft by a coporation or individual since there is no legal term, "copyleft". However, violations of specific copyleft licenses are effectively violoations of copyright law, but are called violations of their specific license, like "GPL violations". --64.223.111.64 14:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

How about software hoarding?--Nowa 15:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
That description is bogus, RMS use the term for all non-free software.--Per Abrahamsen 18:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't understand your point. Could you elaborate?--Nowa 20:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help Please

I am trying to understand this copyleft thing, and I don't get it. I read the whole article. Can someone give me a basic overview what the difference between copyright and copyleft is? Thanks in advance! ~Andy Blak 20:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

A copyright is the right (as in right granted by a government) of an author to prevent a third party from copying their original work without a license. Most licenses demand a payment of money in order for a third party to have permission to copy a given original work (such as computer source code). Hence there is the perception that copyrights restrict copying.
There is a community of software programers, however, are more interested in having access to improvements in their software than they are in a payment of money. Furthermore, they would like to see their source code widely distributed. Hence they have used their copyright in an counterintuitive manner. They grant permission to copy their source code provided that any third parties that copy it and improve it, make the improvements available for copying under the same conditions. Special purpose license agreements have been developed which encourage this. They are called "copylefts". "Left" (as in left hand) is an pun (in English) on "right" (as in goverment granted right and as in right hand). It indicates that the license agreement is used very different manner (left hand vs right hand) than the typical copyright license.
Does this help?--Nowa 00:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes thank you! So most linux forms are copy left then? ~Andy Blak 00:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. I'll let someone else address.--Nowa 13:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am similarly confused about copyleft. I'm attracted to it, since I have observed myself becoming ever more liberal in recent years. But I am holding back on using it for what I think is a very important reason (but hopefully I am wrong).

I won't be specific about my projects, but some could be copyrightable and others might even be patentable. I am not interested in directly making money out of my projects anymore, but would still like the recognition of authorship. If I could be sure that I would retain authorship recognition, I would publish my work. I am concerned that releasing work into the public domain with copyleft tactics, would not prevent somebody else snapping up the copyright for themselves, or at least attempting to.

Is my reason as good as I think it is? I have read in this article about copyleft not being an accepted legal term, and that court cases have not occurred (yet). I used to want to copyright my work, but have never been completely satisfied with any of the suggested methods of achieving it. I would like my works to be shared freely and possibly even editted, but I need to be sure that with a copyleft declaration, nobody else will be tempted to claim copyright for themselves. Am I needlessly paranoid?

Finally, is a copyleft declaration, a declaration that the author waives any claim of copyright, allowing somebody else the legal right to claim it? Suppose somebody was to be taken to court for generating revenue from somebody elses copylefted work, assuming that the judge won't be interested in non-legal copyleft and knowing that the defence has the earliest claim of copyright. Would it be impossible to prosecute, since one would have to provide evidence of earlier copyright, not earlier copyleft. Is that correct? Could the copyrighting non-author prosecute the copylefting author of publishing their own work? I'm quite confused. Tomid 17:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picayune NitPick

I know it might be explained correctly elsewhere (I am not sure), but I think that anything that technically is wrong, should be corrected. My focus of attention is on a sentence [fragment] in about the 3rd paragraph of the article. It says, << " the restrictions imposed are that the work cannot be copied, modified or used in any subsequent work unless the author of that subsequent work agrees to grant the same copyleft rights to the public to freely copy, use and modify the subsequent work. " >>.

Why I think this is (false and) misleading: because those restrictions only apply to copies of (the work or) derived works, that the licensee decides to distribute. Not only does the licensee have the option to create a derived work and keep it for private use or enjoyment, (maybe even like a trade secret? getting in over my head... IANAL) but (I think) also, the option to create several derived works, such that some of the derived works are (distributed, and hence) subject to this restriction, and others are not. I understand that I do not need "permission" to edit, but this article is a little bit imposing, and I think that, to a large extent, it would be advisable to avoid duplicating information that is available on the gnu.org web site. Wikipedia by its nature, tends to be available when other we sites are too -- and the reader could use their own judgment in considering the possible POV considerations, in getting part of their education by reading stuff from a web site that might have some bias. But stuff like this (picayune nitpick, see above) are a good example of something where the gnu.org web site happens to do a very good job of using language carefully, to talk about what the Gnu GPL (and LGPL) do and do not restrict. Thanks for listening, this has been my 0.02... Mike Schwartz 22:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson may have come up with the idea independently, which which make him an important precursor in his own right, but I can't speak to who influenced whom. Kencf 04:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging in "Share-alike"

The Share-alike article has a tag suggesting it be merged into the Copyleft article. The "Share-alike" article is actually about "share-alike copyright license"s, so I think the merge is appropriate. Gronky 13:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

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