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20 ETERNUS CS800 3.2 Open-Source Software
The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and
other kinds of works.
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to
take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU
General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for
all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public
License for most of our software; it applies also to any other work
released this way by its authors. You can apply it to your programs, 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 them 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 prevent others from denying you these
rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain
responsibilities if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify
it: responsibilities to respect the freedom of others.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or
for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you
received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source
code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps:
(1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License giving
you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it. For the
developers' and authors' protection, the GPL clearly explains that there is
no warranty for this free software. For both users' and authors' sake, the
GPL requires that modified versions be marked as changed, so that their
problems will not be attributed erroneously to authors of previous
versions.
Some devices are designed to deny users access to install or run modified
versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so.
This is fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users'
freedom to change the software. The systematic pattern of such abuse occurs
in the area of products for individuals to use, which is precisely where it
is most unacceptable. Therefore, we have designed this version of the GPL
to prohibit the practice for those products. If such problems arise
substantially in other domains, we stand ready to extend this provision to
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