Accepted Restrictions
Certain licenses restrict distribution in order to force derived projects to allow the freedom to use, study, modify, and redistribute the derived project. Some free software licenses carry requirements and restrictions which apply to distributors. There exists an ongoing debate within the free software community regarding the fine line between what restrictions can be applied and still be called "free".
During the 1990s, free software licenses began including clauses, such as patent retaliation, in order to protect against software patent litigation cases - a problem which had not previously existed. This new threat was one of the reasons for writing version 3 of the GNU GPL in 2006. In recent years, a term coined tivoization describes a process where hardware restrictions are used to prevent users from running modified versions of the software on that hardware, which the Tivo device is an example of. It is viewed by the FSF as a way to turn free software to effectively non-free, and is why they have chosen to prohibit it in GPLv3.
Read more about this topic: Free Software Licensing
Famous quotes containing the word accepted:
“For some reason a nation feels as shy about admitting that it ever went forth to war for the sake of more wealth as a man would about admitting that he had accepted an invitation just for the sake of the food. This is one of humanity’s most profound imbecilities, as perhaps the only justification for asking one’s fellowmen to endure the horrors of war would be the knowledge that if they did not fight they would starve.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)