User's Manual
127
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 freedom,
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.
Forexample,ifyoudistributecopiesofsuchaprogram,
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) oer 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
thisfreesoftware.Ifthesoftwareismodiedbysomeoneelseand
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 reect on the original authors’ reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in eect making