One sticker in particular
caught Stallman's eye. It read, "Copyleft (L), All
Rights Reversed." Following the release of the first
version of GPL, Stallman paid tribute to the sticker,
nicknaming the free software license "Copyleft." Over
time, the nickname and its shorthand symbol, a
backwards "C," would become an official Free Software
Foundation synonym for the GPL.
The German sociologist Max Weber once proposed that all
great religions are built upon the "routinization" or
"institutionalization" of charisma. Every successful
religion, Weber argued, converts the charisma or
message of the original religious leader into a social,
political, and ethical apparatus more easily
translatable across cultures and time.
While not religious per se, the GNU GPL certainly
qualifies as an interesting example of this
"routinization" process at work in the modern,
decentralized world of software development. Since its
unveiling, programmers and companies who have otherwise
expressed little loyalty or allegiance to Stallman have
willingly accepted the GPL bargain at face value.
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