Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 950 - Manual (Page 34)

Software license list 2
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no war-
ranty 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 prob-
lems 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 Li-
cense, applies to certain designated libraries, and is quite different from the
ordinary General Public License. We use this license 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 de-
rivative 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 li-
brary. 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 en-
ables 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 Li-