Open Source Licensing Remarks

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 de-facto standard. To achieve
this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is
that a free library does the 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 operating 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.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
Pay close attention to the difference between a "work based on the library" and a "work
that uses the library". The former contains code derived from the library, whereas the
latter must be combined with the library in order to run.
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION