Posted to junk by rmax at Wed Apr 05 14:40:26 GMT 2006view raw

  1. GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  2. Version 2, June 1991
  3.  
  4. Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  5. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
  6. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
  7. of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
  8.  
  9. The Free Software Foundation has exempted Bash from the requirement of
  10. Paragraph 2c of the General Public License. This is to say, there is
  11. no requirement for Bash to print a notice when it is started
  12. interactively in the usual way. We made this exception because users
  13. and standards expect shells not to print such messages. This
  14. exception applies to any program that serves as a shell and that is
  15. based primarily on Bash as opposed to other GNU software.
  16.  
  17. Preamble
  18.  
  19. The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
  20. freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
  21. License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
  22. software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
  23. General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
  24. Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
  25. using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
  26. the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
  27. your programs, too.
  28.  
  29. When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
  30. price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
  31. have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
  32. this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
  33. if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
  34. in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
  35.  
  36. To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
  37. anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
  38. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
  39. distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
  40.  
  41. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
  42. gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
  43. you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
  44. source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
  45. rights.
  46.  
  47. We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
  48. (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
  49. distribute and/or modify the software.
  50.  
  51. Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
  52. that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
  53. software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
  54. want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
  55. that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
  56. authors' reputations.
  57.  
  58. Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
  59. patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
  60. program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
  61. program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
  62. patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
  63.  
  64. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
  65. modification follow.