15. Disclaimer of warranty.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE
EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT
WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE
PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND
PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.
SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU
ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
16. Limitation of Liability.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW
OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT
HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/
OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE,
BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY
GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO
USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE
OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR
A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY
OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER
PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGES.
17. interpretation of Sections 15 and 16.
If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided
above cannot be given local legal effect according to their
terms, reviewing courts shall apply local law that most
closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability
in connection with the Program, unless a warranty or
assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program
in return for a fee.
enD of termS anD conDitionS
Gnu LeSSer GeneraL puBLic LicenSe
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51Franklin Street, 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
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particular case, based on the explanations below. When
we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear
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Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the
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When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or
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The ordinary General Public License therefore permits
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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
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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, nonfree
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
nonfree 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.
