Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, and creator of the General Public Licence, used the term free software to push his belief that software should give the user four rights: freedom to run the program for any purpose; to study the source code and then change it if one wishes; freedom to help one's neighbour and freedom to re-distribute the software.

But these rights have often got in the way of businesses doing deals. The GPL has been the object of much fear, uncertainty and doubt, with people describing it as "viral".

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