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End User License Agreements for Operating System
Software
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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 guaran-
tee 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 Soft-
ware 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 de-
signed to make sure that you have the freedom to dis-
tribute 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 soft-
ware 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 cop-
ies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a pro-
gram, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the re-
cipients 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 origi-
nal, 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 re-
distributors of a free program will individually obtain
patent licenses, in effect making the program propri-
etary. 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, distri-
bution and modification follow.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
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 con-
taining 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 modi-
fication are not covered by this License; they are out-
side 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 Pro-
gram (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 me-
dium, provided that you conspicuously and appropri-
ately 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 Pro-
gram a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transfer-
ring 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 Pro-
gram or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on
the Program, and copy and distribute such modifica-
tions or work under the terms of Section 1 above, pro-
vided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prom-
inent 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 de-
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991
Copyright© 1989, 1991 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.
