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<h1>The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</h1>

<p>The GNU General Public License (GPL) is the principal copyleft

license. Copyleft is a framework that permits ongoing sharing of a

published work, with clear permissions that <em>both</em> grant

<em>and</em> defend its users' freedoms &mdash; in contrast to other

free licenses that grant freedom but don't defend it.

Free software released under the GPL is fundamental

to modern technology, powering everything from laptops and desktops to

household appliances, cars, and mobile phones, to the foundations of

the Internet. Following the GPL's terms is easy — it gets more

complicated only when products distributed with GPL'd software also

include software distributed under terms that restrict users. Even in

these situations, many companies comply properly, but some companies

also try to bend or even break the GPL's rules to their perceived

advantage.</p>

<p>The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Software Freedom Conservancy

  (Conservancy) today lead worldwide efforts to ensure compliance with

  the GPL family of licenses. The FSF began copyleft enforcement

  in the 1980s, and Conservancy has enforced the GPL for many of

  its member projects since its founding nearly a decade ago. Last

  year, the FSF and Conservancy jointly

  published <a href="https://copyleft.org/guide/"><cite>Copyleft and

to bring that violator into compliance.  Copyleft licenses do not

state specific enforcement methodologies (other than license termination itself)

in part because the real world situation of GPL violations varies;

rigidity impedes success. </p>

<p>In particular, this list of principles purposely does not seek to

create strict criteria and/or “escalation and mediation

rules” for enforcement action. Efforts to do that limit the

ability of copyright holders to use copyleft licenses for their

intended effect: to stand up for the rights of users to copy, modify,

and redistribute free software.</p>

<p>The GPL,

enforced when necessary according to these principles, provides a

foundation for respectful, egalitarian, software-sharing

communities.

</p>

<p><em>[ This document is also published on <a href="https://fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles">FSF's site</a>. ]</em></p>

<p>Copyright &copy; 2015, Free Software Foundation, Inc., Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc., Bradley M. Kuhn, Allison Randal, Karen M. Sandler.

<br/>Licensed under the <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.

<br/>The copyright holders ask that per &sect;3(a)(1)(A)(i) and &sect;3(a)(1)(A)(v) of that license, you ensure these two links (<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">[1]</a>,

<a href="https://fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles">[2]</a>) are preserved in modified and/or redistributed versions.</p>