MONTAGE Owner’s Manual
68
GNU LESSER GENER A L PUBLIC LICENSE
V ersion 2.1, Febru ary 1999
Copyright © 1991, 1999 Free Softwar e Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fif th Floor , Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distr ibute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
[This is the first r eleased version of the Lesser GPL.
It also counts as the successor of t he GNU Library Public License, version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
P reamb le
The licenses for most so ftware ar e designed to take a way your fr eedom to
share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public Licenses ar e
intended to guarantee your fr eedom to shar e and change free softwar e—
to make sure the s oftware is free for all its users.
This license, the Lesser Genera l Public License, applies to some specially
designated software packages—typically libraries—of the Fr ee Softwar e
Foundation and othe r authors who decide to use i t. Y ou can use it too, but
we suggest you first think caref ully about whether this license or t he
ordinary General Public License is the better strategy to use in any
particular case, based on the explanations below .
When we speak of free soft ware, we ar e refe rring to fr eedom of use, not
price. Our Gener al Public Licenses are de signed to make sur e that you
have the fr eedom to distri bute copies of fr ee soft ware (and charge fo r this
service if yo u wish); th at you rec eive sour ce code or ca n get it if you want
it; that you can change the softwa re and use pieces of it in new fr ee
programs; and th at you are informed that you can do th ese things.
T o protect your rights, we nee d to make restr ictions that forbid distributors
to deny you these rights or to ask you to surr ender these right s. These
restr ictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute
copies of the library or if you modify it.
For example, if you distr ibute copies of the library , whether gratis or for a
fee, you must give the r ecipients all the r ights that we gave you. Y ou must
make sure that they , too, r eceive or can get the source code. If you link
other code with the lib rary , yo u must provid e complete object fil es to the
recipients, so that they can relink them with th e library after making
changes to the library and r ecompiling it. An d you must show the m these
terms s o they know their rights.
We pr otect your rights wit h a two-step method: (1) we copyright th e
library , and (2) we offer you this license, which gives you legal permission
to copy , distribute and/or modify the library .
T o protect each distr ibutor , we want to make it very clear that ther e is no
warranty for the fr ee library . Also, if the library is modified by someone
else and passed on, the re cipients should know that what they have is not
the original version, so that the original author's reputation will not be
affected by pr oblems that might be introduced by others.
Finally , software patents pose a constant thre at to the existence of any
free pr ogram. We wish to ma ke sure that a company cannot ef fectively
restr ict the users of a fr ee program by obtaining a r estrictive li cense from
a patent holder . Therefore, we insist that any patent license obtained for a
version of the library must be consistent with the full fr eedom of use
specified in this license.
Most GNU softwar e, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary
GNU General Public L icense. T his license, the GNU Lesser Gener al
Public License, applies to certain designated librar ies, and is quite
differ ent fr om the ordinary General Publi c License. We use this licen se for
certain libraries in or der 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 derivati ve of the original library . The ordinary General Public
License ther efore permits such linking onl y if the entir e combination fi ts its
criter ia of fr eedom. The Lesser General Public License permits more lax
criter ia for linking other code with th e library .
We call this license t he “Lesser” General Public License because it does
Less to pr otect the user’ s freedom than the ordinary General Public
License. It also pr ovides other free softwar e d evelopers Less of an
advantage over competing non-fre e programs. These disadvantages are
the reason we use the or dinary General Public License for many librar ies.
However , the Lesser license provides advantages i n certain special
circumstanc es.
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 standar d. T o achieve this, non-fre e programs must be allowed
to use the l ibrary . A mor e fr equent case is that a fre e library does the
same job as widely used non-free librar ies. In this case, ther e is little to
gain by limiting the free librar y to free software only , so we use the Lesse r
General Public License.
In other cases, permission to use a particular library in non-fr ee programs
enables a greater number of people to use a large body of fr ee 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 Lic ense is Less protective of the
users’ fre edom, it does ensu re th at the user of a progr am that is linked
with the Library has the freedom and the wher ewithal to run that pr ogram
using a modified version of the Library .
The preci se terms and conditions fo r copying, distr ibution and
modification f ollow . Pay close attention to the differ ence between a “work
based on the library” and a “work that uses the library”. The former
contains code derived f rom the library , whereas the latter must be
combined with the library in order to run.
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC
LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR
COP YING, DIS TRIBUTION AND
MODIFIC A TION
0. This License Agre ement applies to any soft ware library or o ther
program which contains a notice placed by the c opyright ho lder or
other author ized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of
this Lesser General Public License (also called “t his License”). Each
licensee is addressed as “you”.
A “library” means a collection of software fun ctions and/or data
prepar ed so as to be conveniently linked with application pr ograms
(which use some of those funct ions and data) to form executables.
The “Library”, below , refers to any such softwar e library or work which
has been distributed under th ese terms. A “work based on the
Library” means eithe r the Library or any der ivative work under
copyright law: that is to say , a work containing the Library or a portion
of it, either verbatim or with modifica tions and/or translated
straightforwar dly into another language. (Her einafter , translation is
included without li mitation in t he term “modificati on”.)
“Source code” for a work means the preferr ed 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 defini tion files, plus the scr ipts used to cont rol
compilation and installation of the library .
Activities other than copying, distribution and modificat ion are not
covered by th is License; they ar e outside its scope. The act of
running a pr ogram using the Library is not r estricte d, and output fr om
such a pro gram is cover ed only if its con tents constitute a work
based on the Library (independent of the use of the Library in a tool
for writi ng it). Whether that is t rue depends on what the Library does
and what the program th at uses the Library does.
1. Y ou may copy and distr ibute verbatim copies of the Library’ s
complete sour ce code as you receive i t, in any medium, pr ovided
that you conspicuously and appr opriat ely publish on each copy an
appropr iate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact
all the notic es that r efer to t his License and t o the absence of any
warranty; and distri bute a copy of this License along with t he Library .
Y ou may charge a fee for the physical act of transferr ing a copy , and
you may at your option offer warra nty protection in exch ange for a
fee.
2. Y ou 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 o r work under the terms of Sect ion 1 above,
provided t hat you also mee t all of the se conditions:
a) The modified work must itself be a software library .
b) Y ou must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
c) Y ou must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at no charge
to all thir d parties under the te rms of this License.
d) If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function or a table of
data to be supplie d by an application pr ogram that uses the
facility , other than as an argument passed when the facility is
invoked, then you must ma ke a good fa ith eff ort to ensure tha t, in
the event an application does not supply such functi on or table,