44
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.
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 different from the
ordinary General Public License. We use this license for certain
libraries in order to permit linking those libraries into non-free
programs.
When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or
using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally
speaking a 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
