GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
[ You can view the FSF's "official" version here, but this text is identical. ]
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.
PREAMBLE
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.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND
MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a
notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this
General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or
work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any
derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a
portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term
"modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not
restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a
work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of
warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with
the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such
modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all
of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be
licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when
run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary
way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that
users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to
view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not
normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to
print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably
considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms,
do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the
distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for
other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of
who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right
to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the
Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a
medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years,
to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing
source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to
be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for
software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to
distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial
distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with
such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the
source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files,
plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However,
as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is
normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components
(compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless
that component itself accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source
code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third
parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify,
sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights
under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program
or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this
License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and
conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to
copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not
impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are
imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the
conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If
you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License
and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the
Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly
through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the
section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this
section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution
system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous
contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on
consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she
is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose
that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
be a consequence of the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright
holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical
distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only
in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the
limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be
similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems
or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later
version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that
version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program
does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
published by the Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for
permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to
the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be
guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free
software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO
WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE
STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS
IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.
SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR
OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE
THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL,
SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE
THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE
OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH
ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which
everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion
of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a
pointer to where the full notice is found.
one line to give the program's name and an idea
of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it
will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU
General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like
this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name
of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This
is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type
`show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be
called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu
items--whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or
your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the
program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your
program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If
this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this
License.
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