Also, for each distributor's protection, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no
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Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that
companies distributing free software will individually obtain patent licenses, thus in effect transforming the
program into proprietary software. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed
for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License,
which was designed for utility programs. This license, the GNU Library General Public License, applies to
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and don't assume that anything in it is the same as in the ordinary license.
The reason we have a separate public license for some libraries is that they blur the distinction we usually
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without changing the library, is in some sense simply using the library, and is analogous to running a utility
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work, a derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such.
Because of this blurred distinction, using the ordinary General Public License for libraries did not
effectively promote software sharing, because most developers did not use the libraries. We concluded that
weaker conditions might promote sharing better.
However, unrestricted linking of non-free programs would deprive the users of those programs of all
benefit from the free status of the libraries themselves. This Library General Public License is intended to
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such programs to change the free libraries that are incorporated in them. (We have not seen how to achieve
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The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. Pay close attention to
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Note that it is possible for a library to be covered by the ordinary General Public License rather than by this
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreement applies to any software library which contains a notice placed by the copyright
holder or other authorized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Library 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.
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