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
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
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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
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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that
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Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of
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any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be
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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
