In 1990, it became clear that a less restrictive licence for Library C and software libraries, which primarily do the work of existing proprietary libraries, would be strategically useful; [23] When version 2 of the GPL (GPLv2) was published in June 1991, a second license – the GNU Library General Public License – was introduced and numbered with version 2 to show that the two were complementary. [24] The version numbers separated in 1999, when version 2.1 of LGPL was published, which renamed it GNU Lesser General Public License to reflect its place in philosophy. Eben Moglen, the lawyer for the Free Software Foundation, who is primarily responsible for the implementation of the GPL, explains the difference between contracts and licenses as follows: when you hear that the GPL is viral and can force the proprietary code to become GPL, which some lawyers have said, you will know that this is not true. If you steal the GPL code, you can expect forced action. But this action can only be the application of a license, not a contract, and a forced release according to the GPL cannot be imposed on you under copyright. That is not one of the decisions, as Professor Moglen explained. You have the choice under the GPL: you can stop using the stolen code and write your own, or you can decide that you prefer to publish on the GPL. But it`s up to you. If you say “I do not choose,” the court may file an injunction to prevent you from continuing to distribute, but it will not order your code released under the GPL. Your code remains with you, as you can see, even in the worst case scenario. The corresponding license is included in many manuals and in each distribution of GNU source code. We have a number of resources that help people understand and use our different licenses: But suppose someone respects the license and publishes a derivative book under the GPL. The two requirements of an implied contract are then met.
The duration of the licence implies an agreement and the release of one`s own work within the framework of the GPL brings added value. It would be a good thing to consider this productive relationship as a contract, because it means that if the original copyright holder announces that the work is no longer under GPL license, the owner of the derivative work would be able to prevent it because it is contrary to the tacit contract. The confusion about the GPL comes from this central theme: is the GPL a license or a contract? The reason for this issue is that contracts are applied under contract law, which is done by the state, and there are certain elements necessary to qualify as a valid contract. Licensing, on the other hand, is applied at the federal level by copyright.
