33 english – Toshiba BDX2300 User Manual

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33

English

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

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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

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For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether

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rights that we gave you. You must make sure that they,

too, receive or can get the source code. If you link other

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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

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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we

copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license, which

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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear

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affected by problems that might be introduced by others.

Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the

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that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of

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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

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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

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achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use

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In this case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library

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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

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program that is linked with the Library has the freedom and

the wherewithal to run that program using a modified version

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TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION

AND MODIFICATION

0. This License Agreement applies to any software library or

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holder or other authorized party saying it may be distributed

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The "Library", below, refers to any such software library

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Activities other than copying, distribution and modification

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2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or

BDX2300KE full manual_3-6.indd 33

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