WEEK 6: Computers and Laws II: Software and Content Licensing

 Licenses with strong and weak copyleft

What is copyleft?

Nowadays, it is common to duplicate and change intellectual property to meet a specific need. It's referred to as copyleft. The biggest question I had regarding to copyleft was, 'Why is copyleft used?' According to copyleft, everyone who redistributes the program, with or without changes, must pass on the right to further copy and alter it. Copyleft ensures that each user has freedom. Copyleft also encourages other programmers to contribute to free software.The Creative Commons firm created the copyleft symbol at the bottom.

Which should I choose for copyleft licensing? It is a common question among beginners. There are two types of copyleft licenses: strong and weak. The strong copyleft concept states that if a piece of software contains some of your code, the program as a whole must be published under your license if it is distributed at all. As a result, the source code for all code revisions will be made available.

Weak copyleft, on the other hand, says that when software incorporates some of your code, certain elements of the product must be published under your license. Other sections of code may be given under different licenses since they are all part of a work that is a modified version of many codes.