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To the editors:
In your article on the MyDoom Virus (News, “MyDoom Virus Infects Harvard,” Feb. 4) You called open source software ‘uncopyrighted’ software. This is incorrect. Most open-source software is covered by the GPL or the BSD license (or similar licenses such as Apache and PHP license). If a programmer contributes to Linux she does not revoke her copyright on the code. She simply gives the user a license to use that code and to copy and modify it as she wishes. The copyright holder can still release the same code (hers) under a different license-for example, the MYSQL database is released under both the GPL and a commercial license.
Without copyrights the GPL would not work because any company could hijack the code (like Microsoft), extend it with proprietary code and release it as a binary only without giving others the opportunity to change the code. Eventually such a fork might discourage open source developers to write new code and the code would no longer be freely available after a short while.
Markus Mobius
Feb. 4, 2004
The writer is assitant professor of Economics.
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