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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 non-free programs. 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 job 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 greater 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 system, 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 wherewithal to run
that program using a modified version of the Library.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow. Pay close attention to the difference 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.
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87157 ML eComm Content MSN 5004 9426 final.indb 265
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