GNU General Public License

Series of free software licenses This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (December 2024) This article needs more citations. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "GNU General Public License" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message) GNU General Public LicenseAuthorRichard StallmanLatest version3PublisherFree Software FoundationPublished25 February 1989; 37 years ago (1989-02-25)SPDX identifierGPL-3.0-or-laterGPL-3.0-onlyGPL-2.0-or-laterGPL-2.0-onlyGPL-1.0-or-laterGPL-1.0-onlyDebian FSG compatibleYesFSF approvedYesOSI approvedYes (applies to GPLv3-only and GPLv2-only)CopyleftYesLinking from code with a different licenseSoftware licensed under GPL-compatible licenses only, w