From 9c9c82295147bc2b37312700b9748998a629f6e0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Bradley M. Kuhn" Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 17:44:06 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Rework introduction to this section. --- gpl-lgpl.tex | 22 +++++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/gpl-lgpl.tex b/gpl-lgpl.tex index 7dc2c66..e3dead6 100644 --- a/gpl-lgpl.tex +++ b/gpl-lgpl.tex @@ -523,9 +523,25 @@ such as the right of an authors to require proper attribution for their work. \section{A Community of Equality} -The GPL uses copyright law to defend freedom and equally ensure users' -rights. This ultimately creates an community of equality for both -business and noncommercial users. +The previous section described the principles of software freedom, a brief +introduction to mechanisms that typically block these freedoms, and the +simplest ways that copyright holders might grant those freedoms to their +users for their copyrighted works of software. The previous section also +introduced the idea of \textit{copyleft}: a licensing mechanism to use +copyright to not only grant software freedom to users, but also to uphold +those rights against those who might seek to curtail them. + +Copyleft, as defined in \S~\ref{copyleft-definition}, is a general term this +mechanism. The remainder of this text will discuss details of various +real-world implementations of copyleft -- most notably, the GPL\@. + +This discussion begins first with some general explanation of what the GPL is +able to do in software development communities. After that brief discussion +in this section, deeper discussion of how GPL accomplishes this in practice +follows in the next chapter. + +Simply put, though, the GPL ultimately creates an community of equality for +both business and noncommercial users. \subsection{The Noncommercial Community}