gpl.texi 18 KB

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  1. @node Copying
  2. @unnumbered GNU General Public License
  3. @cindex GPL, GNU General Public License
  4. @center Version 2, June 1991
  5. @c This file is intended to be included in another file.
  6. @display
  7. Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  8. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
  9. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
  10. of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
  11. @end display
  12. @heading Preamble
  13. The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
  14. freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
  15. License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
  16. software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
  17. General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
  18. Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
  19. using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
  20. the GNU Lesser General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
  21. your programs, too.
  22. When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
  23. price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
  24. have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
  25. this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
  26. if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
  27. in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
  28. To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
  29. anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
  30. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
  31. distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
  32. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
  33. gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
  34. you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
  35. source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
  36. rights.
  37. We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
  38. (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
  39. distribute and/or modify the software.
  40. Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
  41. that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
  42. software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
  43. want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
  44. that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
  45. authors' reputations.
  46. Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
  47. patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
  48. program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
  49. program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
  50. patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
  51. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
  52. modification follow.
  53. @heading TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
  54. @enumerate 0
  55. @item
  56. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
  57. a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
  58. under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
  59. refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
  60. means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
  61. that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
  62. either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
  63. language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
  64. the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
  65. Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
  66. covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
  67. running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
  68. is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
  69. Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
  70. Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
  71. @item
  72. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
  73. source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
  74. conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
  75. copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
  76. notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
  77. and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
  78. along with the Program.
  79. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
  80. you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
  81. @item
  82. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
  83. of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
  84. distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
  85. above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
  86. @enumerate a
  87. @item
  88. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
  89. stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
  90. @item
  91. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
  92. whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
  93. part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
  94. parties under the terms of this License.
  95. @item
  96. If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
  97. when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
  98. interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
  99. announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
  100. notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
  101. a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
  102. these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
  103. License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
  104. does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
  105. the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
  106. @end enumerate
  107. These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
  108. identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
  109. and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
  110. themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
  111. sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
  112. distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
  113. on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
  114. this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
  115. entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
  116. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
  117. your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
  118. exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
  119. collective works based on the Program.
  120. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
  121. with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
  122. a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
  123. the scope of this License.
  124. @item
  125. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
  126. under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
  127. Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
  128. @enumerate a
  129. @item
  130. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
  131. source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
  132. 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
  133. @item
  134. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
  135. years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
  136. cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
  137. machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
  138. distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
  139. customarily used for software interchange; or,
  140. @item
  141. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
  142. to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
  143. allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
  144. received the program in object code or executable form with such
  145. an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
  146. @end enumerate
  147. The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
  148. making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
  149. code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
  150. associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
  151. control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
  152. special exception, the source code distributed need not include
  153. anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
  154. form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
  155. operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
  156. itself accompanies the executable.
  157. If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
  158. access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
  159. access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
  160. distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
  161. compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
  162. @item
  163. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
  164. except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
  165. otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
  166. void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
  167. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
  168. this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
  169. parties remain in full compliance.
  170. @item
  171. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
  172. signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
  173. distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
  174. prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
  175. modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
  176. Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
  177. all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
  178. the Program or works based on it.
  179. @item
  180. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
  181. Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
  182. original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
  183. these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
  184. restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
  185. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
  186. this License.
  187. @item
  188. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
  189. infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
  190. conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
  191. otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
  192. excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
  193. distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
  194. License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
  195. may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
  196. license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
  197. all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
  198. the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
  199. refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
  200. If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
  201. any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
  202. apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
  203. circumstances.
  204. It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
  205. patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
  206. such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
  207. integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
  208. implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
  209. generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
  210. through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
  211. system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
  212. to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
  213. impose that choice.
  214. This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
  215. be a consequence of the rest of this License.
  216. @item
  217. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
  218. certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
  219. original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
  220. may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
  221. those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
  222. countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
  223. the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
  224. @item
  225. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
  226. of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
  227. be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
  228. address new problems or concerns.
  229. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
  230. specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
  231. later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
  232. either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
  233. Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
  234. this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
  235. Foundation.
  236. @item
  237. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
  238. programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
  239. to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
  240. Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
  241. make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
  242. of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
  243. of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
  244. @item NO WARRANTY
  245. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
  246. FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
  247. OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
  248. PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
  249. OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
  250. MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
  251. TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
  252. PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
  253. REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
  254. @item
  255. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
  256. WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
  257. REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
  258. INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
  259. OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
  260. TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
  261. YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
  262. PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
  263. POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
  264. @end enumerate
  265. @iftex
  266. @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
  267. @end iftex
  268. @ifinfo
  269. @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
  270. @end ifinfo
  271. @page
  272. @heading Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
  273. If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
  274. possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
  275. free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
  276. To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
  277. to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
  278. convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
  279. the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
  280. @smallexample
  281. @var{one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.}
  282. Copyright (C) @var{yyyy} @var{name of author}
  283. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  284. it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  285. the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
  286. (at your option) any later version.
  287. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  288. but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  289. MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
  290. GNU General Public License for more details.
  291. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  292. along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  293. Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
  294. @end smallexample
  295. Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
  296. If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
  297. when it starts in an interactive mode:
  298. @smallexample
  299. Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) @var{year} @var{name of author}
  300. Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
  301. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
  302. under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
  303. @end smallexample
  304. The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
  305. the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
  306. commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
  307. @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
  308. suits your program.
  309. You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
  310. school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
  311. necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
  312. @example
  313. Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
  314. `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
  315. @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
  316. Ty Coon, President of Vice
  317. @end example
  318. This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
  319. proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
  320. consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
  321. library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General
  322. Public License instead of this License.