Software end user license agreement – Cisco PSUS4 User Manual
Page 35

32
Appendix E
Software End User License Agreement
PrintServer for USB with 4-Port Switch
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
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 license 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 License, 
version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away 
your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU 
General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your 
freedom to share and change free software—to make 
sure the software is free for all its users.
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 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 
copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license, 
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 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 
License therefore permits such linking only if the entire 
combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser 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 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 License.
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 programs enables many 
more people to use the whole GNU operating system, as 
well as its variant, the 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 
