share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended
to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure
the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies
to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program
whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation
software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You
can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, 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 or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that
you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to
deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These
restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute
copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or
for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You
must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you
must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2)
offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute
and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that
everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If
the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its
recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any
problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors'
reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We
wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will
individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program
proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be
licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification
follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice
placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the
terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any
such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the
Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a
work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter,
translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".)