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By contrast, the GNU General Public Licenses are
intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
change free software to make sure the software is
free for all its users.
This license, the Lesser General Public License,
applies to some specially designated software
packages--typically libraries--of the Free Software
Foundation and other authors who decide to use it.
You can use it too, but we suggest you fi rst 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 fi les 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 modifi ed 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 specifi ed 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 fi ts 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 libraries. In this case, there is little to
gain by limiting the free library to free software only,
so we use the Lesser General Public License.
In other cases, permission to use a particular library
in non-free programs enables a greater number of
people to use a large body of free software. For
example, permission to use the GNU C Library in
non-free programs enables many more people to
use the whole GNU operating system, as well as its
variant, the GNU/Linux operating system.
Although the Lesser General Public License is Less
protective of the users' freedom, it does ensure that
the user of a program that is linked with the Library
has the freedom and the wherewithal to run that
program using a modifi ed version of the Library.
The precise terms and conditions for copying,
distribution and modifi cation follow. Pay close
attention to the difference between a "work based
on the library" and a "work that uses the library".
The former contains code derived from the library,
whereas the latter must be combined with the
library in order to run.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR
COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND
MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreement applies to any software
library or other program which contains a notice
placed by the copyright holder or other authorized
party saying it may be distributed under the terms of
this Lesser General Public License (also called "this
License"). Each licensee is addressed as "you".
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