User's Manual

105
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.
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) oer 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ed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 reect 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 eect making