7. Copyleft

Copyleft (the play of words made from copyright) is a way of making a programm, distributing it for free and requiring all other versions, modifications and programs built on top be free in the future.

Free distributed software actually does not mean, that it has no copyright. It actually is copyrighted but its owner gives way for the free distribution and redistribution.
The concept of copyleft is not only used in software but also for example in arts, an example would be creative commons project.

There are different types of copyleft licenses which may differ in one or all of the following terms:

1. Strength
Essentially means that with the weaker license not all the derivative work will have to be handled as per the license (example: GNU C library), while with the stronger licence larger extent of derivative work will have to comply with the copyleft license terms (example: GNU general public license).

2. Coverage of the work
The difference here is the extent to which the code is covered by the license. In some cases the whole work will be covered by the licenses, while in other cases it will be covered partially.

Choosing the copyleft license has benefits of sharing the software with others as well as continuously improve it with the input from other users.

References:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html
https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

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