The GNU General Public License, version 2 (short: GNU GPLv2 or simply GPLv2) is a very popular Free Software License originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project and now kept and developed by the Free Software Foundation.
Free in the context of this license means the freedom of the user of the software. Basically, the license gives everyone the right to do anything with the software provided they abide by certain (limited) restrictions: code licensed under GPL cannot be distributed in closed source programs.
The MoinMoin code is licensed under the GPLv2 or (at the user's option) any later version (except some 3rd party modules we use that are licensed under other Free Software licenses compatible with the GPL).
Consequences of this are, for example:
- Changes released by the community will be open source
- Encouragement and beneficiary of global collaboration.