Companies Violating The Gpl - What Does This Mean For Open Source

In the open source and free software movements there is a popular license that is used called the GPL

. This stands for the Gnu General Public License. It was started by the GNU project and it a very loose license that software makers can attach to their programs.

The basic concepts behind this license is that you can use, examine, change, and distribute the code within the program as long as you are willing to share your improvements with the community. The concept is that software will get better and faster if everyone is sharing their code and improvements versus a closed source model.

Almost weekly now, another company is caught violating the GPL. This means that they took from the body of work to use code for a certain function or application, but did not return the favor by sharing their improvements with others. Much of the time, this is met with denial at first, followed by a potential to be brought to court, followed by the company finally releasing its code for that specific application.

Despite these companies trying to violate the GPL, this is great news for open source. This means that the code has become so good, that companies find it easier to just use open source code than make it on their own. It is such a high quality product that companies are willing to use it, although unfortunate it is hidden from time to time. While one might get angry that this happens, there is some pride to be had that open source is now accepted by million and billion dollar companies as valid.

by: Jay A. Jenkin

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