me."[4-25] But these two features create an incentive problem for authors. If
there were no way for an author to control the copies of his or her created
work, then there would be no easy way for the author to profit from that
work. For some authors, that would mean less time spent producing. And
that in turn would mean less creative work.

Copyright tries to remedy this problem by giving authors a limited
right -- an exclusive right to control some uses of their work for a lim-
ited time. This right is designed to remedy the problem of incentives.

But obviously it does the author no good if the author must exercise his or
her exclusive right alone. Writers aren't publishers. Thus, through contracts
(written against the background of copyright law), the right to use copy-
righted work is granted. That granting is a contract called a "license."

So far I've been speaking of "open code," or "free code," but these terms
describe two very different kinds of licenses. The original open code license
was developed by the Free Software Foundation. This is the "General Pub-
lic License," or GPL.

The GPL sets the terms under which one has the right to use free soft-
ware.[4-26] Among software licenses generally, the GPL is unique. While most
licenses serve to limit the copies a licensee may make, the GPL serves to
limit the _restrictions_ on copying that a licensee can make. Anyone can use
or modify a GPL work, as long as, in the words of the license preamble,
"you... give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure
that they, too, receive or can get the source code."[4-27] As Richard Stallman de-
scribes it:

____ A program is free software, for you, a particular user, if: You have the free-
____ dom to run the program, for any purpose. You have the freedom to modify
____ the program to suit your needs (To make this freedom effective in practice,
____ you must have access to the source code, since making changes in a pro-
____ gram without the source code is exceedingly difficult.). You have the free-
____ dom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a fee. You have the freedom
____ to distribute modified versions of the program, so that the community can
____ benefit from your improvements.[4-28]

The consequence of this license is that copyrighted work licensed under
the GPL is _always_ available to others to use or modify as they wish, _as_is_the_
_code_that_derives_from_GPL-protected_code_. This combination of copyright
law and contract law essentially renders GPL code, as well as code deriva-
tive of GPL code, "free."

[[59]]

p058 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p059w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p060

v?