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10 <h1>
11 GNU General Public License</h1>
12 <a href="http://org.gnu.de/graphics/philosophical-gnu-sm.jpg"><img SRC="philosophical-gnu-sm.jpg" ALT="[image of a Philosophical Gnu]" height=200 width=160></a><a href="http://org.gnu.de/graphics/philosophical-gnu-sm.jpg">
15 patent problems</a>
16 <p>
17 <hr>
18 <h2>
19 Table of Contents</h2>
21 <ul>
22 <li>
24 GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a></li>
26 <ul>
27 <li>
30 <li>
32 AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION</a></li>
34 <li>
36 to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</a></li>
37 </ul>
38 </ul>
40 <hr>
41 <h2>
43 GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a></h2>
48 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
49 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.</pre>
51 <h2>
53 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to
54 share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended
55 to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure
56 the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies
57 to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program
58 whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation
59 software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.)
60 You can apply it to your programs, too.
61 <p>When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.
62 Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the
63 freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service
64 if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it,
65 that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs;
66 and that you know you can do these things.
67 <p>To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone
68 to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions
69 translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies
70 of the software, or if you modify it.
71 <p>For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis
72 or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have.
73 You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code.
74 And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
76 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute
77 and/or modify the software.
78 <p>Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
79 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software.
80 If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its
81 recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any
82 problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors'
83 reputations.
84 <p>Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents.
85 We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will
86 individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary.
87 To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed
88 for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
89 <p>The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification
90 follow.
91 <h2>
93 AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION</a></h2>
95 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under
96 the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers
97 to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either
98 the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say,
99 a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
100 modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation
101 is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee
102 is addressed as "you".
103 <p>Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
104 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running
105 the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered
106 only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent
107 of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends
108 on what the Program does.
110 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously
111 and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice
112 and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this
113 License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients
114 of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
115 <p>You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
116 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
118 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute
119 such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided
120 that you also meet all of these conditions:
121 <ul>
122 <li>
124 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.</li>
126 <li>
128 in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part
129 thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under
130 the terms of this License.</li>
132 <li>
134 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive
135 use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including
136 an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty
137 (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute
138 the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a
139 copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive
140 but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the
141 Program is not required to print an announcement.)</li>
142 </ul>
143 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable
144 sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably
145 considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License,
146 and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them
147 as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of
148 a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole
149 must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees
150 extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless
151 of who wrote it.
152 <p>Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
153 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise
154 the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works
155 based on the Program.
156 <p>In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
157 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a
158 storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the
159 scope of this License.
161 it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms
162 of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: <!-- we use this doubled UL to get the sub-sections indented, --><!-- while making the bullets as unobvious as possible. -->
163 <ul>
164 <li>
166 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and
169 <li>
171 to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically
172 performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the
173 corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections
176 <li>
178 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only
179 for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in
180 object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection
181 b above.)</li>
182 </ul>
183 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
184 modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means
185 all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
186 definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation
187 of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed
188 need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source
189 or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on)
190 of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
191 itself accompanies the executable.
192 <p>If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access
193 to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy
194 the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source
195 code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along
196 with the object code.
198 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise
199 to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will
200 automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties
201 who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not
202 have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
204 not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
205 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited
206 by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing
207 the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance
208 of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying,
209 distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
211 on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
212 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
213 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions
214 on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible
215 for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
217 patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
218 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise)
219 that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you
220 from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to
221 satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other
222 pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the
223 Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
224 redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly
225 or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it
226 and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the
227 Program.
228 <p>If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
229 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
230 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
231 <p>It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
232 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such
233 claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of
234 the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license
235 practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range
236 of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application
237 of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is
238 willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee
239 cannot impose that choice.
240 <p>This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
241 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
243 in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
244 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may
245 add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries,
246 so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded.
247 In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in
248 the body of this License.
250 versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions
251 will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail
252 to address new problems or concerns.
253 <p>Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
254 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
255 later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
256 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software
257 Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License,
258 you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
260 free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the
261 author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the
262 Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
263 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
264 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
265 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
268 NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
269 EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER
270 PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
271 EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
272 OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK
273 AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
274 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
275 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
277 IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY
278 AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
279 DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
280 ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT
281 LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED
282 BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY
283 OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF
284 THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
285 <h2>
286 END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS</h2>
288 <h2>
290 to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</a></h2>
291 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible
292 use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software
293 which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
294 <p>To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
295 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey
296 the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright"
297 line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
298 <pre><i>one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
301 </i>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
302 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
303 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
304 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
306 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
307 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
308 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
309 GNU General Public License for more details.
311 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
312 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
314 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
315 <p>If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
316 when it starts in an interactive mode:
318 </i>Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
319 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
320 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
321 for details.</pre>
323 show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
325 <tt>`show
326 c'</tt>; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits
327 your program.
328 <p>You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
329 school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary.
330 Here is a sample; alter the names:
331 <pre>Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
332 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
333 (which makes passes at compilers) written
334 by James Hacker.
337 Ty Coon, President of Vice</pre>
338 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
339 into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you
340 may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications
341 with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
342 Public License instead of this License.
347 the FSF.
348 <p>Comments on these web pages to
350 send other questions to
352 <p>Copyright notice above.
354 MA 02111, USA
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