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GNU License
Information
Regarding the GNU General
Public License
The software programs used on this component
include the GNU/Linux system.
The GNU/Linux system contains software
licensed for use based on the terms of a GNU
General Public License. If necessary, the user
may request the source code for this licensed
software. The source code is available on our
website. Access the following URL to download:
http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux
Please refrain from making inquiries about the
source code content.
Details of the GNU General Public License can
be found at the GNU website
(http://www.gnu.org).
GNU General Public License
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 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.
◆Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to
take away your freedom to share and change it.
By contrast, the GNU General Public License is
intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
change free software-to make sure the software is
free for all its users. This General Public License
applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation’s software and to any other program
whose authors commit to using it. (Some other
Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Lesser General Public License instead.)
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 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 software, or
if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a
program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must
give the recipients all the rights that you have.
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.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1)
copyright the software, and (2) offer you this
license which gives you legal permission to
copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we
want to make certain that everyone understands
that there is no warranty for this free software. If
the software is modified by someone else and
passed on, we want its recipients to know that
what they have is not the original, 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 redistributors of a free program
will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect
making the program proprietary. To prevent this,
we have made it clear that any patent must be
licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at
all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying,
distribution and modification follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING,
DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or
other work which contains a notice placed
by the copyright holder saying it may be
distributed under the terms of this General
Public License. The “Program”, below,
refers to any such program or work, and a
“work based on the Program” means either
the Program or any derivative work under
copyright law: that is to say, a work
containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or
translated into another language.
(Hereinafter, translation is included without
limitation in the term “modification”.) Each
licensee is addressed as “you”.
Activities other than copying, distribution
and modification are not covered by this
License; they are outside its scope. The act
of running the Program is not restricted, and
the output from the Program is covered only
if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made
by running the Program). Whether that is
true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim
copies of the Program’s source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on
each copy an appropriate copyright notice
and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all
the notices that refer to this License and to
the absence of any warranty; and give any
other recipients of the Program a copy of
this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of
transferring a copy, and you may at your
option offer warranty protection in
exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the
Program or any portion of it, thus forming a
work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under
the terms of Section 1 above, provided that
you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to
carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any
change.
b) You must cause any work that you
distribute or publish, that in whole or in
part contains or is derived from the
Program or any part thereof, to be
licensed as a whole at no charge to all
third parties under the terms of this
License.
c) If the modified program normally reads
commands interactively when run, you
must cause it, when started running for
such interactive use in the most
ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an
appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else,
saying that you provide a warranty) and
that users may redistribute the program
under these conditions, and telling the
user how to view a copy of this License.
(Exception: if the Program itself is
interactive but does not normally print such
an announcement, your work based on the
Program is not required to print an
announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified
work as a whole. If identifiable sections of
that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms,
do not apply to those sections when you
distribute them as separate works. But when
you distribute the same sections as part of a
whole which is a work based on the
Program, the distribution of the whole must
be on the terms of this License, whose
permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part
regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to
claim rights or contest your rights to work
written entirely by you; rather, the intent is
to exercise the right to control the
distribution of derivative or collective
works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another
work not based on the Program with the
Program (or with a work based on the
Program) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other
work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program
(or a work based on it, under Section 2) in
object code or executable form under the
terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided
that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete
corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed
under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
above on a medium customarily used
for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer,
valid for at least three years, to give any
third party, for a charge no more than
your cost of physically performing
source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the
corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily
used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you
received as to the offer to distribute
corresponding source code. (This
alternative is allowed only for
noncommercial distribution and only if
you received the program in object
code or executable form with such an
offer, in accord with Subsection b
above.)
The source code for a work means the
preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable work,
complete source code means all the source
code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the
scripts used to control compilation and
installation of the executable.
However, as a special exception, the source
code distributed need not include anything
that is normally distributed (in either source
or binary form) with the major components
(compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable
runs, unless that component itself
accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code
is made by offering access to copy from a
designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the
same place counts as distribution of the
source code, even though third parties are
not compelled to copy the source along with
the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or
distribute the Program except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or
distribute the Program is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under
this License.
However, parties who have received copies,
or rights, from you under this License will
not have their licenses terminated so long as
such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License,
since you have not signed it. However,
nothing else grants you permission to
modify or distribute the Program or its
derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this
License. Therefore, by modifying or
distributing the Program (or any work based