Gpl Licensing - Comptetive Advantages Trought Tecnologies

Comptetive advantages trought tecnologies

GPL licensing

What is the free software?

The meaning of free software derives from the principles of freedom of ideas and information exchange. In the scientific discipline the principle of free information exchange is highly considered. In fact this principle is usually seen to be linked to the importance of the extraordinary growth of knowledge in the last 3 centuries.

The freedom of idea exchange is not only characterised by practical aspects, it is even the basic condition for freedom of thought and action. Like the ideas the software is immaterial, and can be copied and sent in a simple way. Everyday like the ideas, the softwares give their influence in social background, deterrminating etical,economical and politcals effects.

Richard M. Stallman, in the early 1980s, introduced the meaning of free software.The definition that Stallman gave has since been viewed as the main definition of free software and it is characterized by 4 points of liberty. These are as follows;

Liberty0 (or main freedom)

The liberty to run the programm for every aim without limit in its usage

Liberty1

The liberty to study how the program works,and taylor it for every request

Liberty2

The liberty to spread between people copies of the program

Liberty3

The liberty to impower the program and,and to destributed its apgraded versions.

The software

that is distributed that contain these criteria

are called “free software”. In 1984 Richard Stallman started the “GNU project” with the aim to realise the free software concept, creating a free software fondation, to give economical, tecnical and logistic support.

Copy Right Licensing

A copyright license is a legal document usually distributed together with the fisical copy of the programme, i.e.Windows’s family programs. The licence is based on the legal norm of copyright. Copyrights are the set of rules that define rights and duties for the user of the program.

Most of the commonly used licences are property licenses. It means that they can not be considered as free software because they don’t respect the 4 previous caracteristics. In a lot of instances these licenses do not allow the users to copy or modify the program.

Very often if the program is istalled on the computer, the licence doesn’t allow the customer to install the same program on a laptop or in another machine i.e. to use the program outside of the home building;if the program is used in a company, the licence doesn’t allow the user to istall the program on any other computers, even if the the already licensed computer breaks down and no longer works.

The GNU project licence, GNU GPL, on the other hand,