Appendix _
79
06 APPENDIX
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin 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 fi rst 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 fi rst 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
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you
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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 fi les
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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 off er 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
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make sure that a company cannot eff ectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a
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Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public
License. This license, the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to certain designated
libraries, and is quite diff erent from the ordinary General Public License. We use this license for
certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries into nonfree programs.
When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the
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The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination
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We call this license the “Lesser” General Public License because it does Less to protect the
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