The Linux kernel (basic operating system with a command line interface) was
developed under the GNU Public License (GPL) from the Free Software
Foundation. See http://www.gnu.org/ for more information. About a third of
the way down the page under the heading GNU's Flashes, you'll see a link
entitled GNU Free Documentation License (if you hover your mouse and your
status line is turned on you'll see "copyleft" in the URL. This is the full
license. All software developed and released under this license is free
(although one can charge for materials and time for producing distributabel
copies on CD-ROMS, etc and for support or value-added) and must be
distrubted with the source code. A good example is Red Hat Linux for which
you pay for their CDs and support plus their value-added installation
process but you can also download the software, including source code off
their site. Modifying the code and distributing it falls under the same
license but gets much too complex to detail here. The license is good
reading. Not all Linux projects are freely distributable, e.g. Applixware
office suite. I think it would be safe to say that anything developed using
the basic Linux operating system and the gcc compilers would fall under the
GPL. Obviously, there are ways to develop proprietary products but that runs
counter to the Linux and GNU/GPL philosophy. The Debian GNU/Linux
(http://www.debian.org/) is considered the purest Open Source Linux
available.

You'll find a signficant number of users in the academic community,
especially in mathematics, computer sciences, and the hard sciences. Perhaps
I should say this here, but I am in the final throes of finishing a paper
which I'll submit to the SRA Journal discussing providing research
administration support to Linux users...Bill

Bill Caskey, PhD
Director, Research & Grants Administration
Children's Mercy Hospital
2401 Gillham Road
Kansas City, MO  64108

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-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew E. Clark [mailto:xxxxxx@SYR.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 4:22 PM
To: xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG
Subject: LINUX and the Public Domain

Hi folks,

Has anyone come across "GNU Copyleft?"  I've been told that "it is the
genesis of the entire Open Source movement in software development."  Is
anyone aware of a trend towards making all source code freely available
(so that it, and all derivatives, must also be freely available)?

This concept is related, in some way, to LINUX, which is a
unix-compatible, freely-available operating system, and can be used for
software development.  LINUX has been proposed for use on a DOE project,
but I cannot
say at this time whether all LINUX project results  fall under
'CopyLeft'
or not.

It seems to me that if this concept was being used in academic
environments, we'd have heard of it by now and perhaps raised a stink.
Of course, my concern is that, not only would we be obligated to put
deliverables in the public domain, but the concept is contrary to the IP
rights clauses of some of our research agreements.

Thanks,
Matt

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