Open Source

Why some apps are free

Much of the software featured here is issued under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The licence allows anyone to use, share, and modify the software. The GPL is what’s known as a ‘copyleft licence’. That basically means that any derived works must be licensed on the same terms. That was written into the licence to ensure that the freedoms granted by the creator of the original work are preserved.

Libre-Office, for example is derived from Open-Office and retains the same licence. Likewise, GIMP has produced several 'forked' versions over the years. One of those is Sea-Shore, which uses GIMP’s engine but is written using Cocoa. However, Sea-Shore lacks many of GIMP’s features, is still in beta, and its last stable release is six years old, so GIMP is a better option.