Panasonic AJ-YAX800 - Manual (Page 99)

iv
GPL/LGPL
LGPL
$ GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim
copies of this license document, but changing it is not
allowed.
[This is the first released version of the Lesser GPL. It also
counts as the successor of the GNU Library Public License,
version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away
your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU
General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your
freedom to share and change free software—to make sure
the software is free for all its 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 first 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,
receive or can get the source code. If you link other code
with the library, you must provide complete object files 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 modified 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 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.