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[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]

[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a [[Free Software]] license created by Richard Stallman in 1989 by Richard Stallman for Free Software creators. The GPL grants users the Four Freedoms:


* The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.


Since then, the license has become extremely popular & wide-spread. The GPL has gone through 3 revisions, with GPLv3 being the latest.

GPLv3 allows any user to access, modify, and redistribute the source code, given that the redistributed version of the software is also released as GPLv3.