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<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.> Copyright © <year> <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright © year name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for
details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of
course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-
clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer"
for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers)
written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a
subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what
you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright © 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 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 Lesser GPL. It also counts as the successor of the GNU Library Public License,
version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
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 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
first 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 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.
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
modified 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.
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