Sony XBR-84X900 - Manuel (Page 57)

D:\TV's JOB\SONY TV\SY120108_B16\4437555111_US\US07PRE.fm
XBR-84X900
4-437-555-11(1)
57 US
US
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take
away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast,
the GNU General Public Licenses are intended to
guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software-to make sure the software is free for all its
users.
This license, the Lesser General Public License, applies
to some specially designated software packages-
typically libraries--of the Free Software Foundation and
other authors who decide to 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 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
and use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you
are informed that you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that
forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to ask you
to surrender these rights. These restrictions translate to
certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of
the library or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of the library,
whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients
all the rights that we gave you. You must make sure that
they, too, receive or can get the source code. If you link
other code with the library, you must provide complete
object files to the recipients, so that they can relink them
with the library after making changes to the library and
recompiling it. And you must show them these terms so
they know their rights.
We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we
copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license,
which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute
and/or modify the library.
To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear
that there is no warranty for the free library. Also, if the
library is modified by someone else and passed on, the
recipients should know that what they have is not the
original version, so that the original author’s reputation
will not be affected by problems that might be
introduced by others.
Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the
existence of any free program. We wish to make sure
that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of a
free program by obtaining a restrictive license from a
patent holder. Therefore, we insist that any patent
license obtained for a version of the library must be
consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this
license.
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 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.
(Continued)