Freecom SILVER STORE 2-DRIVE NAS User Manual page 117

GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document,
but changing it is not allowed.
[This is the first released version of the library GPL. It is numbered 2 because it goes
with version 2 of the ordinary GPL.]
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and
change it. 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 Library General Public License, applies to some specially
designated Free Software Foundation software, and to any other libraries whose authors
decide to use it. You can use it for your libraries, too. When we speak of free software,
we are referring to freedom, 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 or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you
can do these things. To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the 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 a program 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. Our method of protecting your rights has two
steps: (1) copyright the library, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal
permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library. Also, for each distributor's
protection, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty
for this free library. If the library is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its
recipients to know that what they have is not the original version, so that any problems
introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations. Finally, any free
program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that
companies distributing free software will individually obtain patent licenses, thus in effect
transforming the program into proprietary software. To prevent this, we have made it
clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all. Most
GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public
License, which was designed for utility programs. This license, the GNU Library General
Public License, applies to certain designated libraries. This license is quite different from
the ordinary one; be sure to read it in full, and don't assume that anything in it is the
same as in the ordinary license.
The reason we have a separate public license for some libraries is that they blur the
distinction we usually make between modifying or adding to a program and simply using
it. Linking a program with a library, without changing the library, is in some sense simply
using the library, and is analogous to running a utility program or application program.
However, in a textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a
derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such.
Because of this blurred distinction, using the ordinary General Public License for libraries
did not effectively promote software sharing, because most developers did not use the
libraries. We concluded that weaker conditions might promote sharing better.
However, unrestricted linking of non-free programs would deprive the users of those
programs of all benefit from the free status of the libraries themselves. This Library
General Public License is intended to permit developers of non-free programs to use free
libraries, while preserving your freedom as a user of such programs to change the free