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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
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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
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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
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For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the widest possible use of a
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libraries. In this case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only, so we use the
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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
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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
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The "Library", below, refers to any such software library or work which has been distributed under these
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