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License agreement s – Hitachi 42HDS69 User Manual

Page 72

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72

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

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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 freedom and the wherewithal to

run that program using a modified version of the Library.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and

modification follow. Pay close attention to the difference between

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The former contains code derived from the library, whereas the

latter must be combined with the library in order to run.

GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING,

DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

0. This License Agreement applies to any software library or

other program which contains a notice placed by the copyright

holder or other authorized party saying it may be distributed under

the terms of this Lesser General Public License (also called "this

License"). Each licensee is addressed as "you".

A "library" means a collection of software functions and/or data

prepared so as to be conveniently linked with application programs

(which use some of those functions and data) to form executables.

The "Library", below, refers to any such software library or work

which has been distributed under these terms. A "work based on

the Library" means either the Library or any derivative work under

copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Library or a

portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated

GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1, February 1999

Copyright © 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin St, 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.]

End User License Agreement for Operating System Software

License Agreement

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