Samsung CLX-4195FN-XAA User Manual

Page 176

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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

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