Table of Contents
Advertisement
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. Therefore, we insist that any patent license
obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the
full freedom of use specified 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 fits 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
Manufacturer's Warranty
35
Advertisement
Table of Contents
