copyleft

English

Etymology

Pun on copyright, which refers to using copyright laws for purposes that are in some ways contrary to copyright's original intent.

Noun

copyleft (usually uncountable, plural copylefts)

1. The philosophy of using copyrights to enforce freedom of information, especially software source code.

   They believe in copyleft because they want their software to be used freely by anyone.

2. A software license that follows this philosophy.

   I have placed my program under copyleft.

   The GNU General Public License is a copyleft licence.

Derived terms

• copyleftist

Translations

philosophy

• French: gauche d'auteur f, copyleft (fr) m
• Russian: копилефт (kopileft), (rare) авторское ле́во (avtorskoje lévo)

• Vietnamese: phi bản quyền

Verb

copyleft (third-person singular simple present copylefts, present participle copylefting, simple past and past participle copylefted)

1. To license under a copyleft license.

   Linus Torvalds copylefted the Linux kernel.