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
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these
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For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the
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We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2) we offer you
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To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty for the free
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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 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
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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
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