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From: r...@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,gnu.gcc.announce,gnu.emacs.announce,comp.emacs
Subject: New version of GPL--please comment
Message-ID: <9103240616.AA06425@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 24 Mar 91 06:16:32 GMT
Followup-To: gnu.misc.discuss
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Approved: info-...@prep.ai.mit.edu
To: info-gnu-em...@prep.ai.mit.edu, info-...@prep.ai.mit.edu
I'm planning to release a new version of the ordinary GPL soon. I'd
like to get comments first, so here is the latest draft. **This is
not the planned Library GPL**; it is intended for programs like Emacs
and GCC, not for libraries.
This is not supposed to change the spirit and philosophy of the GPL,
just to clean up minor problems. So please mention anything here that
you find unclear or ambiguous. If you see consequences that you think
I might not be aware of, please tell me. If you see ways that small
changes could avoid problems, please tell me that too.
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GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 1.92, March 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The license agreements of most software companies try to keep users
at the mercy of those companies. By contrast, our General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. The
General Public License applies to the Free Software Foundation's
software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.
You can use it for your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Specifically, the General Public License is designed to make
sure that you have the freedom to give away or sell copies of free
software, 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 a 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 tell them their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer 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 modified 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 reflect on the original
authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that companies distributing free
software will individually obtain patent licenses, thus in effect
transforming the program into proprietary software. To prevent this,
we have made provision to require users to band together either to
fight an invalid patent or to license a valid one for the entire
public.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.
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GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications. Each licensee is addressed as
"you".
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. In particular,
running the Program is not restricted unless the result of execution
is to create a copy of the Program or a work based on the Program.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this General Public License and to the absence
of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy
of this General Public License along with the Program. You may charge
a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also do the following:
a) Cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that
you changed the files and the date of any change; and
b) Cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or
in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part
thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this General Public License (except
that you may choose to grant warranty protection to some or all
third parties, at your option).
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
General Public License. (The copyright holder may designate the
Program as an exception to section 2c by giving notice in the
source code.)
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a
fee.
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These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable portions of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered separate works in themselves, then
this License does not apply to those portions in isolation. It
applies to them only as parts of a combined work based on the Program.
It is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your
rights to work written by you; only to exercise the right to control
the making of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
Mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the
Program (or a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of
these terms.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party free (except for a nominal charge
for the cost of distribution) a complete machine-readable copy of
the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms
of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for
software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable file, complete source code
means all the source code for all modules it contains. However, as a
special exception, it need not include source code for modules which
are libraries that standardly accompany the components (compiler,
kernel and so on) of the operating system on which the executable file
runs, or for definitions files that standardly accompany those
components.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
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4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this General Public License. Any
attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the
Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights to use
the Program under this License. However, parties who have received
copies, or rights to use copies, from you under this General Public
License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to distribute
the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by
law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by distributing the
Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your
acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions
for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy ALL your obligations, then as a
consequence you may not distribute the Program. For example, any
patent license that would not permit royalty-free redistribution of
the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly
through you contradicts this License and therefore would leave no
possible distribution terms not ruled out for one reason or another.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
apply and the section is a whole is intended to apply in other
circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
We believe that this section is actually a consequence of the rest of
this License; we have added it explicitly to avoid any uncertainty.
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8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted by
patents in certain countries, the Program may contain an explicit
geographical statement limiting distribution to outside of those
countries. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as
if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of the license which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
the license, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
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Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to
attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey
the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the
copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
Copyright (C) 19yy <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19xx name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show
c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your
program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the
program `Gnomovision' (a program to direct compilers to make passes
at assemblers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
That's all there is to it!
This General Public License does not permit anyone to incorporate the
programs it covers into proprietary products. If your program is a
subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit its use
in such products, on the idea that more software developers will use
and extend it on that basis. If this is what you want to do, use the
GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.