Administrator Guide

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.
GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreement applies to any software library which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder or other
authorized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Library General Public License (also called "this License").
Each licensee is addressed as "you".
A "library" means a collection of software functions and/or data prepared so as to be conveniently linked with application
programs (which use some of those functions and data) to form executables.
The "Library", below, refers to any such software library or work which has been distributed under these terms. A "work based
on the Library" means either the Library or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Library
or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated straightforwardly into another language. (Hereinafter,
translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".)
"Source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For a library, 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 library.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The
act of running a program using the Library is not restricted, and output from such a program is covered only if its contents
constitute a work based on the Library (independent of the use of the Library in a tool for writing it). Whether that is true
depends on what the Library does and what the program that uses the Library does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete 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 distribute a copy of this License along
with the Library.
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 Library or any portion f it, thus forming a work based on the Library, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
d. The modified work must itself be a software library.
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