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Fix typos in license page.

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Closes #752.
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David Anselmi 2026-02-25 09:44:21 -07:00
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content/getting-started/licensing.md
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@ -10,20 +10,20 @@ Adding a license to a project is essential for making it reusable: In the absenc
copyright law would otherwise forbid others from (re-)using and distributing your work.
Moreover, a license can further specify other important properties, such as the temporary- or forever-openness of the code,
the rights granted to the users (such as the [four fundamental software freedoms](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms)),
or the permission of using patents encoded in a program.
or the permission to use patents encoded in a program.
## Copyright: The mechanism behind most software licenses
The international validity of most common licenses is guaranteed by copyright law, and in particular by the [Copyright Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty)
of the United Nations' (UN) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) adopted in 1996.
This treaty sets a common denominator for all adhering countries, but individual countries can still extend domestically
the reach of copyright. The article 4 of the Copyright Treaty clarified once for all that computer programs are
the reach of copyright. Article 4 of the Copyright Treaty clarified once for all that computer programs are
protected by copyright just as literary works.
Unfortunately, however, copyright law does not protect hardware objects.
[Copyright law is extremely powerful](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.en.html).
In fact, it grants the author of a work exclusive rights to use or distribute their work.
An author can grant permission of using his/her work under arbitrary conditions; just for illustration, an author could
An author can grant permission to use his/her work under arbitrary conditions. Just for illustration, an author could
invent for example a "coffee license" and impose that whoever uses his work has to offer the author a coffee.
Similarly, forever-open licenses grant users the right to use the work provided that they will redistribute any
derivative work using the same license again (copyleft).
@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ One of the major distinctions between licenses is between:
2. Licenses which permit to close the source, i.e. temporarily-open licenses.
These licenses are usually known as permissive licenses. The MIT license or the Apache license belong to this category.
The term "permissive" often causes confusion, because it sounds fair and good to unexperienced people.
The term "permissive" often causes confusion, because it sounds fair and good to inexperienced people.
People who contribute to the development of a program released with a permissive license must be aware that the
program could become proprietary at any time. For example, when a company hires the original team of developers.
@ -89,10 +89,10 @@ copyleft licenses whenever possible.
Free software licenses are licenses which respect the [four fundamental software freedoms](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms)
defined by the Free Software Foundation.
Both copyleft and permissive license can, or cannot, be free licenses. For example, the [Modified BSD license](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ModifiedBSD)
Both copyleft and permissive license may, or may not, be free licenses. For example, the [Modified BSD license](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ModifiedBSD)
is a permissive non-copyleft free software license.
In the context of licenses, the term "free" means free as in "freedom", not of gratis, but this has often been confused.
In the context of licenses, the term "free" means free as in "freedom", not as in gratis, but this has often been confused.
Still, free software is often also gratis software.
Gratis non-free software usually includes gratis proprietary programs (shareware), demonstration or trial versions,
limited versions (crippleware), advertising-supported software (e.g. antivirus), and usually viruses and worms
@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ leave no trace.
Even Google [avoided the use of the MIT license when developing Android](https://source.android.com/setup/start/licenses),
presumably because of the missing patent provision.
For further information on "patents and free software", head over to [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software).
For further information on "patents and free software", head over to [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software).
## Warnings
@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ The incompatibility between licenses is clearly a headache for every developer.
recommend, is to use only mainstream licenses (as recommended in this page) and hence avoid [license proliferation](#license-proliferation).
For more information on license compatibility, we recommend the commented [license list curated by the GNU project](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html).
### Conflict-of-interests
### Conflicts-of-interest
The open-source community is represented by a variety of groups with different, and sometimes opposite, interests.
For example, the prominent websites [ChooseALicense.com](https://choosealicense.com) is curated by GitHub and can be