The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is the most widely used free software license. It was originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.
The GPL is the first copyleft license for general use, which means that derived works can only be distributed under the same license terms. Under this philosophy, the GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses are the standard examples.
Read more about GNU General Public License: History, Terms and Conditions, Licensing and Contractual Issues, Copyright Holders, The GPL in Court, Compatibility and Multi-licensing, Adoption, Use For Text and Other Media, Conditions For Copying The Licence Itself
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“General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general.... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“All is possible,
Who so list believe;
Trust therefore first, and after preve,
As men wed ladies by license and leave,
All is possible.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)