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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.
We call this license the "Lesser" General Public License because it does Less to
protect the user's freedom than the ordinary General Public License. It also
provides other free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non-
free programs. These disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General
Public License for many libraries. However, the Lesser license provides advantages
in certain special circumstances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the
widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto standard. To
achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the library. A more
frequent case is that a free library does the same job as widely used non-free
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