“GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Discussion Draft 1 of Version 3, 16 Jan 2006“THIS IS A DRAFT, NOT A PUBLISHED VERSION OF THE GNU GENERAL
PUBLIC LICENSE.“Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin
Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Everyone is
permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license
document, but changing it is not allowed.“Preamble
“The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change
free software–to make sure the software is free for all its users.
We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public
License for most of our software; it applies also to any other
program whose authors commit to using it. (Some Free Software
Foundation software is covered by the GNU Lesser General Public
License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too…”
Rationale Document–GPLv3
“In fifteen years of use, version 2 of the GNU General Public
License has succeeded beyond our expectations. It has nurtured a
spirit of cooperation and trust that has enabled a worldwide
community of user/developers to release an extraordinary range of
free software. The underlying principle of respect for users’ right
to cooperate has spread beyond the field of software, to inspire
other creative and scientific endeavors.“The success of the GPL is due to its fundamental design
principle: the protection of users’ freedom to work individually or
together to make software do what they wish. To carry the GPL into
the future, we have undertaken to adapt the license to uphold this
principle through the opportunities and menaces of today’s
technological and legal environment…”