GPL

Short for GNU General Public License, the GPL is a general license published by GNU (GNU's Not Unix) project. Any software author may use the GPL to legally control the way their software may be used by others. It is a copyleft license, meaning that any code derived from GPL-licensed code must also be licensed under the GPL.

Guaranteed freedoms

Anyone who uses GPL-licensed software, and abides by the license terms, is guaranteed four fundamental freedoms as defined by the Free Software Foundation:

1. The freedom to run the program as you want, for any purpose.
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you want.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you may help your neighbor.
4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Business terms, Computer acronyms, Copyleft, Free software, LGPL, Open source, Programming terms, Software license, TLA