Open Source Software
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
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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 oper-
ating 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.
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
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(For example, a function in a library to compute square roots has a purpose that is entirely well-defined independent of the application. There-
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supply it, the square root function must still compute square roots.)
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