Copyleft/Talk

from Free software/Talk

According to wikipedia 'copyleft' was coined by Don Hopkins and not Richard Stallman. The Free software and the Copyleft articles now disagree with eachother. --arcade

This could be tough to sort out -

The Origin and Practice of "Copyleft" - http://www.olypen.com/harmon/fdl/copyl.htm -

"Transcopyright: Pre-Permission for Virtual Republishing" by Theodor Holm Nelson - http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/transcopyright/transcopy.html - (says "the terms "shareware" and "copyleft," declared by Bob Wallace and Richard Stallman respectively, have come to represent their respective permission doctrines, both [are] now widely accepted and used.")

Both of those attributions are wrong. "Shareware" predates Wallace as well--I know that I personally saw the term applied to, for example, things like ARC (the original pre-Phil Katz version) long before Wallace's PCWrite. Both should, however, be credited with refining and popularizing the terms. --LDC

It was coined by Don Hopkins without question, then popularized by Stallman. Stallman says so himself on his website. --AxelBoldt