Copyleft impact on choosing Software License (week 6)

    To be able to discuss the effects of Copyleft on selecting Software License, firstly the terms Copyleft and Software License need to be elucidated. To put it simply, Software License is a document providing legal guidelines for using and distributing the software, and the method for making a program and its modifications free is called Copyleft. Now, let's take a look at the impact of Copyleft on Software Licensing. 

   Firstly, the copyleft exists in some forms, like strong, weak, and no copyleft. In strong copyleft, the post-modified works should maintain the original license. Moreover, the software with the mentioned kind of copyleft is not allowed to be converted to proprietary (closed) software, whose source code only belongs to the creator or in other words it is a property of the creator. So that a strong copyleft is not a good choice for the developers, but a suitable option for end-users.  

   There is another version of copyleft called weak copyleft. Despite the fact that the weak copyleft also demands the license to be preserved, for better software integration it also provides some exceptions. Weak Copyleft is mostly used for software libraries.

   The best course of a developer's action would be using the software with no copyleft. This is explained by no limitation. As the no copyleft software does not restrict the ability to be licensed for the modified versions of the software, this option is considered to be the best one for the developers. 

   Considering all the above, it can be said that the strong copyleft best suits end-users, while the weak to the software libraries, and the no copyleft to the developers.

REFERENCE:

1. Gnu.org. 2022. What is Copyleft? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html> [Accessed 6 March 2022].

2. BBC Bitesize. 2022. Proprietary, free and open source software - Software concepts - GCSE Computer Science Revision - BBC Bitesize. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z6r86sg/revision/4> [Accessed 6 March 2022].

3. SearchCIO. 2022. What is a Software License? Everything You Need to Know. [online] Available at: <https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/software-license> [Accessed 6 March 2022].

4. Copyleft: An alternative approach to licensed sharing. Canto. (2021, February 15). Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://www.canto.com/blog/copyleft/ [source of image]