GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA
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 free-
dom 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 free-
dom, 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 modi-
fied 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
GNU GPL 1
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by
software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redis-
tributors 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.
GNU GPL 2
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
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 trans-
lated 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 modifica-
tion 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 (indepen-
dent 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 Pro-
gram's source code as you receive it, in any medium, pro-
vided 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 protec-
tion 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 Pro-
gram, 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 pub-
lish, 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 inter-
actively when run, you must cause it, when started
GNU GPL 3
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
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 Pro-
gram 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 dis-
tribute 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 cus-
tomarily 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 customar-
ily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to
GNU GPL 4
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
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 compi-
lation 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 (com-
piler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which
the executable runs, unless that component itself accompa-
nies 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 dis-
tribute the Program is void, and will automatically termi-
nate 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 per-
mission to modify or distribute the Program or its deriva-
tive works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do
not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or dis-
tributing 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.
GNU GPL 5
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
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 restric-
tions 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 lim-
ited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that con-
tradict 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 obliga-
tions under this License and any other pertinent obliga-
tions, 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 distri-
bution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unen-
forceable 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 soft-
ware distribution system, which is implemented by public
license practices. Many people have made generous contri-
butions 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.
GNU GPL 6
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
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 coun-
tries, 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 dif-
ferent, write to the author to ask for permission. For
software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Founda-
tion, 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 deriva-
tives 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 PRO-
GRAM 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, INCLUD-
ING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
GNU GPL 7
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
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
GNU GPL 8
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
Appendix: 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) 19yy < 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 Foun-
dation; 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, 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) 19yy 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 condi-
tions; 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.
GNU GPL 9
GPL(GNU) Free Software Foundation GPL(GNU)
You should also get your employer (if you work as a pro-
grammer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright dis-
claimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample;
alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright inter-
est 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.
GNU GPL 10