That is, when you acquire a product (for free, or for a fee) -- it seeks to make sure that you can do use that product as you wish. And that if you re-sell it, or share it, those same rights are available for the next user down the line.
The GPL achieves this by bending copyright into copyleft. It is not concerned with allowing people to make money repackaging a piece of software and locking it down in various ways.
So, it is all about freedoms, just maybe not the freedoms that some developers thinks it is/should be about.
I'm not sure if this is still the case, but for a while Microsoft would provide source-code to the Windows NT kernel to universities and academic institutions; the source was open (for some definition of "open") but because Microsoft did not allow redistribution and modification, and only allowed the code to be used for educational purposes, it was not Free software.
If A GPL'd the software then C has a right to the exact code running on their device. This is not the case under other licenses that people like to call "more free".
What right is missing: The ability to compile a new kernel for an embedded device. Qualcomm, Marvell, Broadcom, ARM, NVIDIA, and many others. They provide binary device drivers that work only with specific versions of the Linux kernel. Consequently, my home router has more computing power than my desktop 20 years ago, but my desktop was free to run any software and my router is just a router.
Also, Android devices almost never update, for the same reason.
You just aren't free change the terms under which you distribute.
> "freedom for end users but not free to modify and distribute"
That would be: "freedom for end users, freedom to modify and distribute - but not freedom to change terms under which (re)distribution happens".
Which I think is pretty much what they are already saying?
Just read it. If you want total abolition of copyright and proprietary software, fine. If you think proprietary software is ok, you are a total hypocrite to criticize copyleft. Period.
The BSD license grants you the freedom to restrict the freedoms of others.
The GPL license restricts your freedom to restrict the freedoms of others.
> It's not right to call GPL software free, it should rather be "no cost and slightly restricted use".
Is there anything that meets this definition of free? The BSD license doesn't grant this; software under it can have unlimited cost and no source code available.
Other licenses, such as the X11 license, let you embed the software into proprietary projects. So in that sense you are granted more freedom. But doing that denies other freedoms that the GPL explicitly grants.
Probably because it is not suppose to....
Also, free beer > free pizza.
Done.
Teacher: Here, children. Here is some free software. Parent of child: Thanks. It is GPL. Give me the source. Teacher: Huh?
There needs to be a license that is similar to the GPL in scope but is readable and clear about what is required to a person who has never compiled software in their life and is not a lawyer. Open source projects need to realize that not everybody is a software engineer. Not everybody is up to date on the latest terminology. If they want laypeople to download and distribute code, make it easy to get. And above all, communicate clearly in language they can understand.
If you're looking for a way to use someone's software components against their wishes, and just looking for a legal way of doing so, then you may be right.
If you actually want to respect the wishes of the author OTOH...
Doesn't even mean I disagree with most of the license, but it is unreasonable to expect people to understand it.
You would certainly be making their lives difficult for no reason, in terms of tracking down software revisions. I guess if that's fun to you then ... whatever.
In the past, it's been business entities that have distributed considerable a number of binaries (I believe one case was with code running on a router?) -- and charged quite a bit for that (bundle) -- and yet been too cheap to host a copy of the code online.
I suspect not.
> You're not allowed to ... or remove the license agreement
No license agreement allows you as a recipient to ignore the license. At best, you can redistribute a "all right reserved" copyrighted work, while you yourself follows the license. At no point can you actually remove a license and then use it in a way that require authorized permission under copyright law.
You would also have a hard time finding such copyright license. Both BSD and MIT requires that the license are kept in all copies. Removing the license there would be as illegal as it would be to remove the GPL.
Simply put: if you get sued for copyright violation, its the license that the accused must raise in defense. Removing it is guarantied to be illegal except in rare situations such as wtfpl.