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What is Software Licenses

Chapter 28
Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives
A software license is a license that grants permission to do things with software. The license can be used to grant permissions to do things which are not granted by copyright. The license can also be used to deny users the right to do things to software to a much larger degree than those granted by copyright.
Published in Chapter:
The Evolution of Free Software
Mathias Klang (University of Goteborg, Sweden)
Copyright: © 2007 |Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59140-999-1.ch028
Abstract
The more we rely upon software to mediate the many facets of our lives the more important the ability to control and adapt that software to our needs becomes. The Free Software Foundation stands at the forefront for this effort to ensure user empowerment. The main tool of the foundation is the General Public License that has been a fundamental document in software development since its conception in 1989. At present the Free Software Foundation is in the process of launching a new version of their license and the process is similar to the development of an existing social contract—the delicate problem is meeting the new challenges that have appeared since the earlier version while maintaining the spirit of the original.
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