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but we suggest you first think carefully about whether this license or the ordinary General Public License is the
better strategy to use in any particular case, based on the explanations below.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, not price. Our General Public Licenses
are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this
service if you wish); that you receive source code or can get it if you want it; that you can change the software
and use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to ask
you to surrender these rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute
copies of the library or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all
the rights that we gave you. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. If you link
other code with the library, you must provide complete object files to the recipients, so that they can relink
them with the library after making changes to the library and recompiling it. And you must show them these
terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license,
which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library.
To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty for the free library. Also, if
the library is modified by someone else and passed on, the recipients should know that what they have is not
the original version, so that the original author's reputation will not be affected by problems that might be
introduced by others.
Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program. We wish to make sure
that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a restrictive license from a
patent holder. Therefore, we insist that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be
consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this license.
Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License. This
license, the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and is quite different
from the ordinary General Public License. We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking
those libraries into non-free programs.
When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two
is legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License
therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General
Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.
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