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LGPL license
GNU Lesser General Public License
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 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.
[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
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When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, not price. Our General
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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
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For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis or for a fee, you
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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2)
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty
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the recipients should know that what they have is not the original version, so that the
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We wish to make sure that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of a free program
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Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General
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We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries
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When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library,
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original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking