Gnu lesser general public license, Preamble – Siemens Gigaset S450IP User Manual

Page 38

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37

Appendix

Gigaset S450 IP KBA / EN US / A31008-M1713-R321-2-6043 / appendix.fm / 17.1.07

Ve

rs

ion 4,

16

.09.

2005

GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC

LICENSE

Version 2.1, February 1999

Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foun-

dation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Bos-

ton, 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 ver-

sion 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 Soft-

ware 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 refer-

ring 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 restric-

tions that forbid distributors to deny you these

rights or to ask you to surrender these rights.

These restrictions translate to certain responsi-

bilities 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 com-

plete 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 permis-

sion 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 some-

one 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. There-

fore, 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 ordi-

nary 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 compet-

ing 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 pro-

grams 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

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