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14. Appendix
GB104
User’s Manual
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 ser vice 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 l
ibrary, you must provide complete
object les 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 oer 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 modied 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 aected 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
eectively 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 specied in this license.
Most GNU software, including so
me 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 dierent 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 co
mbination 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 ts 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 als
o provides other free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non-free program
s. These
disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for many libraries. However, the Lesser license provides
advantages in certain special circumstances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the
widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes
a de-facto standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a free library
does the same jo
b as widely used non-free libraries. In this case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only, so
we use the Lesser General Public License.
In other cases, permission to use a particular library in non-free
programs enables a gr
eater number of people to use a large body of
free software. For example, permission to use the GNU C Library in non-free programs enables many more people to use the whole GNU
operating syste
m, as well as its variant, the GNU/Linux operating system.
Although the Lesser General Public License is Less protective of the users’ freedom, it does ensure that the user of a program that is
linked with the Library has the freedom and the wher
ewitha
l to run that program using a modied version of the Library.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modication follow. Pay close attention to the dierence between a “work
based on the library” and a “work
that uses the library”. The former contains code derived from the library, whereas the latter must be
combined with the library in order to
run.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreem
ent applies to any software library or other program which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder or
other authorized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Lesser General Public License (also called “this License
”).
Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
A “library” means a collection of software functions and/or data prepared so as to be conveniently linked with application programs
(which use some of those functions and data) to form executables.