Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an
interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright © year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w’.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions;
type `show c’ for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w’ and `show c’ should show the appropriate parts of
the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something
other than `show w’ and `show c’; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--
whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any,
to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the
names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision’
(which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary
programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to
permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use
the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.
(ii) LGPL
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright © 1991, 1999 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.
[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 to use in
any particular case, based on the explanations below.
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 service 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 library, you must
provide complete object files 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
offer 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 modified 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 affected 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 effectively 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 specified in this license.
OPEN SOURCE LICENSES (cont.)