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GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

Version 2, June 1991

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 library GPL. It is numbered 2 because it goes with version 2 of the ordinary GPL.]

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 Library General Public License, applies to some specially designated Free Software Foundation software, and to

any other libraries whose authors decide to use it. You can use it for your libraries, 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 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 a program 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.

Our method of protecting your rights has two steps: (1) copyright the library, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal

permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library.

Also, for each distributor‘s protection, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free

library. If the library is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the

original version, 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 companies distributing

free software will individually obtain patent licenses, thus in effect transforming the program into proprietary software. To

prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone‘s free use or not licensed at all.

Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License, which was designed for

utility programs. This license, the GNU Library General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries. This license is quite

different from the ordinary one; be sure to read it in full, and don‘t assume that anything in it is the same as in the ordinary

license.

The reason we have a separate public license for some libraries is that they blur the distinction we usually make between

modifying or adding to a program and simply using it. Linking a program with a library, without changing the library, is in some

sense simply using the library, and is analogous to running a utility program or application program. However, in a textual

and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public

License treats it as such.

Because of this blurred distinction, using the ordinary General Public License for libraries did not effectively promote software

sharing, because most developers did not use the libraries. We concluded that weaker conditions might promote sharing

better.

However, unrestricted linking of non-free programs would deprive the users of those programs of all benefit from the free status

of the libraries themselves. This Library General Public License is intended to permit developers of non-free programs to use free

libraries, while preserving your freedom as a user of such programs to change the free libraries that are incorporated in them.

(We have not seen how to achieve this as regards changes in header files, but we have achieved it as regards changes in the

actual functions of the Library.) The hope is that this will lead to faster development of free libraries.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. Pay close attention to the difference between

a „work based on the library“ and a „work that uses the library“. The former contains code derived from the library, while the

latter only works together with the library.

Note that it is possible for a library to be covered by the ordinary General Public License rather than by this special one.