Users Guide

the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively state the exclusion of warranty; and
each file should have at least the copyright line and a pointer to where the full notice is found. . The GNU 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
Lesser General Public License instead of this License. But first, please read.
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2.1, February 1999 Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301 USA 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 Lesser GPL. It also counts as the successor of the GNU Library Public License,
version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
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 Lesser General Public License, applies to some specially designated software packages--
typically libraries--of the Free Software Foundation and other authors who decide to use it. You can use it too, but we suggest
you first think carefully about whether this license or the ordinary General Public License is the better strategy to use in any
particular case, based on the explanations below. When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, 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 and use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these things. To protect your
rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender these 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 other code 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. We protect your rights with a two-
step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license, which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute
and/or modify the library. To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty for the free
library. Also, if the library is modified by someone else and passed on, the recipients should know that what they have is not the
original version, so that the original author's reputation will not be affected by problems that might be introduced by others.
Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program. We wish to make sure that a company
cannot effectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a restrictive license from a patent holder. Therefore, we
insist that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the full freedom of use specified in
this license. Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License. This license,
the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and is quite different from the ordinary General
Public License. We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries into non-free programs. When a
program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally speaking a
combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the
entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code
with the library. We call this license the "Lesser" General Public License because it does Less to protect the user's freedom than
the ordinary General Public License. It also provides other free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non-
free programs. These disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for many libraries. However, the
Lesser license provides advantages in certain special circumstances. For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special
need to encourage the widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto standard. To achieve this, non-free
programs must be allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a free library does the same job as widely used non-
free libraries. In this case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only, so we use the Lesser General
Public License. In other cases, permission to use a particular library in non-free programs enables a greater number of people to
use a large body of free software. For example, permission to use the GNU C Library in non-free programs enables many more
people to use the whole GNU operating system, as well as its variant, the GNU/Linux operating system. Although the Lesser
General Public License is Less protective of the users' freedom, it does ensure that the user of a program that is linked with the
Library has the freedom and the wherewithal to run that program using a modified version of the Library. 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, whereas the latter must be
combined with the library in order to run.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
This License Agreement applies to any software library or other program which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder
or other authorized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Lesser 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
50
Third party licenses