Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS 2250P - Manual (Page 24)

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1.3 SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT 1
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 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 con-
sistent 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 Li-
cense therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser Gen-
eral 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 advan-
tage 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 circum-
stances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the widest possible use of a cer-
tain 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.