Copyleft?

In class today, one of you all asked me if "copyleft" was a real word. I said that it was, but I thought you all might want a bit more background. There's a pretty good explanation of the definition of the word and the thinking behind the concept in its Wikipedia entry.

Copyleft is a play on the word copyright and describes the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions.

The GNU Project goes on to answer the question "what is copyleft?" with the answer:

Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.

The Free Software Foundation expands on the topic a bit, saying

To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.

Proprietary software developers use copyright to take away the users' freedom; we use copyright to guarantee their freedom. That's why we reverse the name, changing ``copyright'' into ``copyleft.''

So, now you know. I want to thank the student for challenging me on the definition. Asking about the veracity and validity of things you hear and read is what this class is all about and that was a good example being a skeptical consumer of information.

example of a first draft

Here is an example of what a first draft research question might look like. It isn't necessarily perfect, but it does meet the specs listed on the task. You might look at the examples of how to format the question and at the other example of a question linked from the task page.

The following uses the styles in the MSWord 2007 stylesheet called "Traditional", but you may use any stylesheet you prefer

Research Question-First Draft

Course

AFAM 428: Bioethics in Afro-American Studies

Course Description

This course examines different diseases that afflict the African American community. This course looks into the reasons why African Americans distrust the United States Medical system and its officials.

Research Question

What are the reasons for African Americans distrust of the United States Medical and Clinical system and its officials and what are ways that this relationship can be improved?

Question Description

For many years African Americans have been open about their distrust towards the medical system. Some African Americans believe that doctors don’t care enough about their health to provide adequate care or prescribe them the proper medicine to make their conditions better. My goal is to find out what events or misconceptions caused this distrust. I would also like to find out what are some methods in which this relationship can be improved.