96 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
96 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
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Version 2.1, February 1999
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Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
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Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
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of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
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[This is the first released version of the Lesser GPL. It also counts
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as the successor of the GNU Library Public License, version 2, hence
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the version number 2.1.]
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Preamble
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The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
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freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
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Licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change
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free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.
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This license, the Lesser General Public License, applies to some
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specially designated software packages--typically libraries--of the
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Free Software Foundation and other authors who decide to use it. You
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can use it too, but we suggest you first think carefully about whether
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this license or the ordinary General Public License is the better
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strategy to use in any particular case, based on the explanations below.
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When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use,
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not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that
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you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge
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for this service if you wish); that you receive source code or can get
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it if you want it; that you can change the software and use pieces of
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it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do
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these things.
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
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distributors to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender these
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rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for
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you if you distribute copies of the library or if you modify it.
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For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis
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or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that we gave
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you. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source
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code. If you link other code with the library, you must provide
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complete object files to the recipients, so that they can relink them
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with the library after making changes to the library and recompiling
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it. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the
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library, and (2) we offer you this license, which gives you legal
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permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library.
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that
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there is no warranty for the free library. Also, if the library is
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modified by someone else and passed on, the recipients should know
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that what they have is not the original version, so that the original
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author's reputation will not be affected by problems that might be
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introduced by others.
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Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of
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any free program. We wish to make sure that a company cannot
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effectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a
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restrictive license from a patent holder. Therefore, we insist that
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any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be
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consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this license.
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Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the
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ordinary GNU General Public License. This license, the GNU Lesser
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General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and
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is quite different from the ordinary General Public License. We use
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this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those
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libraries into non-free programs.
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When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using
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a shared library, the combination of the two is legally speaking a
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combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary
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General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the
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entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General
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Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with
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the library.
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We call this license the "Lesser" General Public License because it
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does Less to protect the user's freedom than the ordinary General
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Public License. It also provides other free software developers Less
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of an advantage over competing non-free programs. These disadvantages
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are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for many
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libraries. However, the Lesser license provides advantages in certain
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special circumstances.
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For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to
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encourage the widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes
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a de-facto standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be
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allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a free
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library does the same job as widely used non-free libraries. In this
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case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free
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software only, so we use the Lesser General Public License.
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