Editing GNU Project (section)

== Copyleft ==

{{main | Copyleft}}

[[Copyleft]] is what helps maintain free use of this software among other programmers. Copyleft gives the legal right to everyone to use, edit, and redistribute programs or programs' code as long as the distribution terms do not change. As a result, any user who obtains the software legally has the same freedoms as the rest of its users do.

The GNU Project and the [[Free Software Foundation]] sometimes differentiate between "strong" and "weak" copyleft. "Weak" copyleft programs typically allow distributors to link them together with non-free programs, while "strong" copyleft strictly forbids this practice. Most of the GNU Project's output is released under a strong copyleft, although some is released under a weak copyleft or a lax, push-over free software license.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://wiki.freedesktop.org/www/Ncurses/|title=Ncurses|website=wiki.freedesktop.org|access-date=2019-03-18|quote=It is one of the few GNU files not distributed under the GNU General Public License or GNU Lesser General Public License; it is distributed under a license like the X11 License|archive-date=2021-03-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322075235/https://wiki.freedesktop.org/www/Ncurses/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html|title=Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library|website=GNU|quote=There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases.|access-date=2019-03-18|archive-date=2007-11-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071126020249/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html|url-status=live}}</ref>