Software licence agreement – Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WRT320N User Manual

Page 48

Appendix E

Software Licence Agreement

Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router

GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENCE

This is an unofficial translation of the GNU General Public

Licence into [language]. It was not published by the

Free Software Foundation and does not legally state the

distribution terms for software that uses the GNU GPL—

only the original English text of the GNU GPL does that.

However, we hope that this translation will help [language]

speakers understand the GNU GPL better.
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 licence 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 Licence,

version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]

Preamble

The licences for most software are designed to take away

your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU

General Public Licences are intended to guarantee your

freedom to share and change free software—to make

sure the software is free for all its users.
This licence, the Lesser General Public Licence, 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

licence or the ordinary General Public Licence 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 Licences

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

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 licence from a

patent holder. Therefore, we insist that any patent licence

obtained for a version of the library must be consistent

with the full freedom of use specified in this licence.
Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered

by the ordinary GNU General Public Licence. This licence,

the GNU Lesser General Public Licence, applies to certain

designated libraries and is quite different from the

ordinary General Public Licence. We use this licence 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

Licence therefore permits such linking only if the entire

combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General

Public Licence permits more lax criteria for linking other

code with the library.
We call this licence the "Lesser" General Public Licence

because it does Less to protect the user's freedom than

the ordinary General Public Licence. 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 Licence

for many libraries. However, the Lesser licence 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 Licence.