HP EX475 MediaSmart Server User Manual

Page 180

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Licenses, Copyrights and Notices for Open Source Components

Version Update 1.1.1

9-14

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to

share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended

to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure

the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most

of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose

authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is

covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it

to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, 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 or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you

can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny

you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions

translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the

software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for

a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make

sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show

them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer

you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or

modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that

everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the

software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients

to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems

introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We

wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually

obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent

this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's

free use or not licensed at all.

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