6
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 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 and use pieces of it in
new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you
these rights or to ask you to surrender these rights. These restrictions translate to certain
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, re-
ceive or can get the source code. If you link other code with the library, you must provide
complete object fi les 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 modifi ed 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 specifi ed 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 li-
brary. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire
combination fi ts 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 dis-
advantages 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.
86803_50043573 GNU LICENSE ALDI BE Content RC1.indd 686803_50043573 GNU LICENSE ALDI BE Content RC1.indd 6 19.10.2012 15:05:0219.10.2012 15:05:02
