34
English
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 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, non-free 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 non-free 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.
Although the Lesser General Public License is Less protective
of the users' freedom, it does ensure that the user of a
program that is linked with the Library has the freedom and
the wherewithal to run that program using a modified version
of the Library.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution
and modification follow. Pay close attention to the difference
between a "work based on the library" and a "work that
uses the library". The former contains code derived
from the library, whereas the latter must be combined
with the library in order to run.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION
AND MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreement applies to any software library or
other program which contains a notice placed by the copyright
holder or other authorized party saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this Lesser General Public License (also
called "this License").Each licensee is addressed as "you".
A "library" means a collection of software functions and/
or data prepared so as to be conveniently linked with
application programs (which use some of those functions
and data) to form executables.
The "Library", below, refers to any such software library
or work which has been distributed under these terms. A
"work based on the Library" means either the Library or any
derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work
containing the Library or a portion of it, either verbatim or
with modifications and/or translated straightforwardly into
another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included
without limitation in the term "modification".)
"Source code" for a work means the preferred form
of the work for making modifications to it. For a
library, complete source code means all the source
code for all modules it contains, plus any associated
interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the library.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification
are not covered by this License; they are outside its
scope. The act of running a program using the Library is
not restricted, and output from such a program is covered
only if its contents constitute a work based on the Library
(independent of the use of the Library in a tool for writing
it). Whether that is true depends on what the Library
does and what the program that uses the Library does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the
Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any
medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately
publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice
and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices
that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along
with the Library.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of
transferring a copy, and you may at your option
offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or
any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Library,
and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the
terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of
these conditions:
a) The modified work must itself be a software
library.
b) You must cause the files modified to carry
prominent notices stating that you changed
the files and the date of any change.
c) You must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at
no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
d) If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function
or a table of data to be supplied by an application program
that uses the facility, other than as an argument passed
when the facility is invoked, then you must make a good faith
effort to ensure that, in the event an application does not
supply such function or table, the facility still operates, and
performs whatever part of its purpose remains meaningful.
(For example, a function in a library to compute square roots
has a purpose that is entirely well-defined independent of
the application. Therefore, Subsection 2d requires that any
application-supplied function or table used by this function
must be optional: if the application does not supply it, the
square root function must still compute square roots.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a
whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived
from the Library, and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves, then this
License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when
you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a
work based on the Library, the distribution of the whole
must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions
for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus
to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or
contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather,
Downloaded from
www.Manualslib.com
manuals search engine
