WEEK6 Copyleft - the free software licenses

    Copyleft, a term coined from the movement of free licenses, with the intention to antagonize copyrights. It determines how licenses will affect derived work, thus how a creator’s work is influenced and categorized based on the licenses of the basis he used.

    There are three categories, strong copyleft, weak copyleft and no copyleft. Strong copyleft requires that for all derived creations the licenses from the original are kept. This impedes the creation of proprietary software. A strong license is the GNU General Public License. Whilst it enforces barely any restrictions on the use, development and copying of the software, these liberties however, are only ensured if the derivatives are pertained to the same rights. This means that the licenses are hereditary, therefore the derivatives cannot be made proprietary. Strong copyleft licenses therefore impede the linking to proprietary or non-free software, making it rather inept for developers. This type of software is more suited for end users, who are not planning in merging software’s. The strong measures also keep the software free, protecting it from being exploited by larger software companies such as Microsoft, Facebook or Apple.

    Differently, the weak copyleft allows more freedom, although still tying the derivatives to the original’s licenses, exceptions enable hybridity. Software of different license can be “linked” and even proprietary software can be included in the derivatives, making the licenses more acquitted for developers and mainly for creating software libraries. The European Union Public License (EUPL) is an example of a weak copyleft license. Whilst initially being a strong copyleft license, to enable a greater scope of compatibility, it implemented some exceptions moving it towards a weaker copyleft license. The license was developed with the intent of creating a license that is following EU laws and regulations. Thus, allowing for a more fluent intra-EU software development and clarifying elements such as warranty and limitations of liability. Furthermore, there is the plan to promote official translations of software into all European languages, making it more accessible to developers and users. Personally, I like the idea of the EU having their own, all member state incorporating, license that promote cooperation and inclusion throughout the EU. Moving it towards a weaker copyleft license also facilitates further cooperation.

    The third license type is a no copyleft license, whilst derivatives can be made proprietary the original software continues to be free, as stated by the license. This makes it welcome for developers to use as it can easily be linked and developed in an individual manner. One example is the Apache license, which is used by many projects such as the Apache Web Server, Apache OpenOffice and even the VLC media player. Although the use of non-copyleft licenses has increased during the last decade, strong and weak copyleft licenses are still preferred and are therefore more prominent. I think the lesser success of the license type, is that many creators that offer a free software do want to keep it free or at least maintain certain rights and using a non-copyleft license does not ensure that.

    The idea of copyleft is intriguing and clearly meant to protect the freedom and availability of software. The freedom is slightly limited to promote software development and linking, however, it is for the creator to decide how the original and its derivatives are to be integrated.