Ubuntu Manpage: gpl - GNU General Public License

NAME

       gpl - GNU General Public License

DESCRIPTION

GNU 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.

Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
your programs, 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 software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, 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 redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by
the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General
Public License. The ``Program'', below, refers to any such program or work, and a
``work based on the Program'' means either the Program or any derivative work under
copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
(Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term
``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this
License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not
restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute
a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's 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
give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the
Program.

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 Program or any portion of it, thus forming a
work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under
the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.

b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part
contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a
whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

c. If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must
cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way,
to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and
a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty)
and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling
the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is
interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of
that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not
apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program,
the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions
for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part
regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to
work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control
the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the
Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution
medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in
object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that
you also do one of the following:

a. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which
must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

b. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any
third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source
distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code,
to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute
corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial
distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable
form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable work, 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
executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with
the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which
the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a
designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the
same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are
not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or
distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under
this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
full compliance.

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However,
nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its
derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this
License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on
the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms
and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on
it.

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy,
distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not
impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted
herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this
License.

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for
any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of
this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you
cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License
and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the
Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly
through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular
circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a
whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other
property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the
sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system,
which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous
contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in
reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to
decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a
licensee cannot impose that choice.

This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence
of the rest of this License.

8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries
either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who
places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution
limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or
among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the
limitation as if written in the body of this License.

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General
Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the
present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a
version number of this License which applies to it and ``any later version'', you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not
specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by
the Free Software Foundation.

10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose
distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For
software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free
Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be
guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free
software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

NO WARRANTY

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM,
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING
THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE
ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR
CORRECTION.

12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY
COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS
PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL,
INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE
PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE
OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE
WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in
an interactive mode:

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands show w and show c should show the appropriate parts of the
General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other
than show w and show c; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever suits
your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to
sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter
the names:

Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
`Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice

This 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 Library General Public License instead of this License.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
       Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA

       Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but
       changing it is not allowed.

NAME

DESCRIPTION

SEE ALSO

COPYRIGHT