copyleft
<legal> /kop'ee-left/ (A play on "copyright") The copyright notice and
General Public License applying to the works of the Free Software Foundation,
granting reuse and reproduction rights to everyone.
Typically copyrights take away freedoms; copyleft preserves them. It is a legal
instrument that requires those who pass on a program to include the rights to
use, modify, and redistribute the code; the code and the freedoms become legally
inseparable.
The copyleft used by the GNU Project combines a regular copyright notice and the
"GNU General Public License" (GPL). The GPL is a copying license which basically
says that you have the aforementioned freedoms. The license is included in each
GNU source code distribution and manual.
See also General Public Virus.
[Jargon File]
(1995-04-18)
Nearby terms:
copybook « copybroke « copying garbage collection «
copyleft » copy member » copy module » copy
protection
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