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9 <H1>GNU General Public License</H1>
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34 <LI><A HREF="/licenses/gpl-violation.html"><EM>What to do if you see a
35 possible GPL violation</EM></A>
36 <LI><A HREF="/licenses/translations.html"><EM>Translations
38 <LI><A HREF="/licenses/gpl-faq.html"><EM>GPL Frequently Asked Questions</EM></A>
39 <LI>The GNU General Public License (GPL)
40 <A HREF="/licenses/gpl.txt">in plain text format</A>
41 <LI>The GNU General Public License (GPL)
42 <A HREF="/licenses/gpl.texi">in Texinfo format</A>
49 <H2>Table of Contents</H2>
52 <LI><A NAME="TOC1" HREF="gpl.html#SEC1">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</A>
54 <LI><A NAME="TOC2" HREF="gpl.html#SEC2">Preamble</A>
55 <LI><A NAME="TOC3" HREF="gpl.html#SEC3">TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION</A>
56 <LI><A NAME="TOC4" HREF="gpl.html#SEC4">How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</A>
69 <H2><A NAME="SEC1" HREF="gpl.html#TOC1">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</A></H2>
76 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
77 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
79 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
80 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
85 <H2><A NAME="SEC2" HREF="gpl.html#TOC2">Preamble</A></H2>
88 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
89 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
90 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
91 software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
92 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
93 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
94 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
95 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
100 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
101 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
102 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
103 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
104 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
105 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
109 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
110 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
111 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
112 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
116 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
117 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
118 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
119 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
124 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
125 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
126 distribute and/or modify the software.
130 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
131 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
132 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
133 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
134 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
135 authors' reputations.
139 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
140 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
141 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
142 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
143 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
147 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
153 <H2><A NAME="SEC3" HREF="gpl.html#TOC3">TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION</A></H2>
159 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
160 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
161 under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
162 refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
163 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
164 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
165 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
166 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
167 the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
170 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
171 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
172 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
173 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
174 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
175 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
180 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
181 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
182 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
183 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
184 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
185 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
186 along with the Program.
189 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
190 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
194 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
195 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
196 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
197 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
202 <LI><STRONG>a)</STRONG>
203 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
204 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
207 <LI><STRONG>b)</STRONG>
208 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
209 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
210 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
211 parties under the terms of this License.
214 <LI><STRONG>c)</STRONG>
215 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
216 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
217 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
218 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
219 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
220 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
221 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
222 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
223 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
224 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
227 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
228 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
229 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
230 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
231 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
232 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
233 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
234 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
235 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
238 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
239 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
240 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
241 collective works based on the Program.
244 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
245 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
246 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
247 the scope of this License.
252 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
253 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
254 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
257 <!-- we use this doubled UL to get the sub-sections indented, -->
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261 <LI><STRONG>a)</STRONG>
262 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
263 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
264 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
267 <LI><STRONG>b)</STRONG>
268 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
269 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
270 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
271 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
272 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
273 customarily used for software interchange; or,
276 <LI><STRONG>c)</STRONG>
277 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
278 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
279 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
280 received the program in object code or executable form with such
281 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
284 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
285 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
286 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
287 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
288 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
289 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
290 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
291 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
292 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
293 itself accompanies the executable.
296 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
297 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
298 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
299 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
300 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
304 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
305 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
306 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
307 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
308 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
309 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
310 parties remain in full compliance.
315 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
316 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
317 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
318 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
319 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
320 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
321 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
322 the Program or works based on it.
327 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
328 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
329 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
330 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
331 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
332 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
338 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
339 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
340 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
341 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
342 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
343 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
344 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
345 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
346 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
347 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
348 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
349 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
352 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
353 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
354 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
358 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
359 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
360 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
361 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
362 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
363 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
364 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
365 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
366 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
370 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
371 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
376 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
377 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
378 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
379 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
380 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
381 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
382 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
387 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
388 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
389 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
390 address new problems or concerns.
393 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
394 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
395 later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
396 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
397 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
398 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
405 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
406 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
407 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
408 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
409 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
410 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
411 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
415 <P><STRONG>NO WARRANTY</STRONG></P>
420 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
421 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
422 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
423 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
424 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
425 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
426 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
427 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
428 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
433 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
434 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
435 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
436 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
437 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
438 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
439 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
440 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
441 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
446 <H2>END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS</H2>
450 <H2><A NAME="SEC4" HREF="gpl.html#TOC4">How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</A></H2>
453 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
454 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
455 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
459 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
460 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
461 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
462 the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
467 <VAR>one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.</VAR>
468 Copyright (C) <VAR>yyyy</VAR> <VAR>name of author</VAR>
470 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
471 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
472 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
473 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
475 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
476 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
477 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
478 GNU General Public License for more details.
480 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
481 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
482 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
486 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
490 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
491 when it starts in an interactive mode:
496 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) <VAR>year</VAR> <VAR>name of author</VAR>
497 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
498 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
499 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
504 The hypothetical commands <SAMP>`show w'</SAMP> and <SAMP>`show c'</SAMP> should show
505 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
506 commands you use may be called something other than <SAMP>`show w'</SAMP> and
507 <SAMP>`show c'</SAMP>; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever
512 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
513 school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
514 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
519 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
520 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
521 (which makes passes at compilers) written
524 <VAR>signature of Ty Coon</VAR>, 1 April 1989
525 Ty Coon, President of Vice
529 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
530 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
531 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
532 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
533 Public License instead of this License.
537 Return to <A HREF="/home.html">GNU's home page</A>.
539 FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to
540 <A HREF="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><EM>gnu@gnu.org</EM></A>.
541 Other <A HREF="/home.html#ContactInfo">ways to contact</A> the FSF.
543 Comments on these web pages to
544 <A HREF="mailto:webmasters@www.gnu.org"><EM>webmasters@www.gnu.org</EM></A>,
545 send other questions to
546 <A HREF="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><EM>gnu@gnu.org</EM></A>.
548 Copyright notice above.<BR>
549 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
550 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA
554 Last modified: Sun Jul 15 13:13:30 CEST 2001