Software Copyright Evolution

Doghouse – Licenses

Article from Issue 276/2023
Author(s):

From no licenses to too many, software copyright finally made its way to including today's free software designation.

Last month I touched briefly on copyright and this month I would like to continue the theme of intellectual property by discussing licenses.

Initially software was not able to have a copyright.

If the sources were exposed and there was no contract, then, basically, the software was in the public domain and people could do whatever they wanted with it.

[...]

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