change the software and use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to
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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this
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Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program. We wish to make
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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
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When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of
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We call this license the "Lesser" General Public License because it does Less to protect the user's
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of an advantage over competing non-free programs. These disadvantages are the reason we use the
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For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the widest possible use of a
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allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a free library does the same job as widely used
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