PERLGPL(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLGPL(1)
NAME
perlgpl - the GNU General Public License, version 2
SYNOPSIS
You can refer to this document in Pod via "L<perlgpl>"
Or you can see this document by entering "perldoc perlgpl"
DESCRIPTION
This is "The GNU General Public License, version 2". It's here so that modules, programs, etc., that
want to declare this as their distribution license, can link to it.
It is also one of the two licenses Perl allows itself to be redistributed and/or modified; for the
other one, the Perl Artistic License, see the perlartistic.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By
contrast, the GNU 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. This General Public License
applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors
commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library Gen-eral General
eral Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
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) 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 redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for
everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
--GNU -GNU
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 por-tion portion
tion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Here-inafter, (Hereinafter,
inafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is
addressed as "you".
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they
are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the
Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having
been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
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 copy-right copyright
right notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and
to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
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.
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 meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must 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 License.
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
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
--These -These
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are
not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them
as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work
based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose per-missions permissions
missions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless
of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written
entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of deriva-tive derivative
tive or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with 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 this License.
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 fol-lowing: following:
lowing:
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, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source 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.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For
an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus
any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installa-tion installation
tion of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major compo-nents components
nents (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
component itself accompanies the executable.
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 distri-bution distribution
bution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with
the object code.
--4. -4.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under
this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void,
and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received
copies, or rights, from you under this 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 modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or 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 automati-cally automatically
cally 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' exer-cise exercise
cise 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, agree-ment agreement
ment 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 simultaneously your obliga-tions obligations
tions under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not dis-tribute distribute
tribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistri-bution redistribution
bution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the
only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of
the Program.
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 as 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.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of
this License.
--8. -8.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents
or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribu-tion distribution
tion is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorpo-rates incorporates
rates 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 dif-fer differ
fer in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of
this 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 Founda-tion. Foundation.
tion. If the Program does not specify a version number of this 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 con-ditions conditions
ditions 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 deriva-tives derivatives
tives 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 CORREC-TION. CORRECTION.
TION.
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 REN-DERED RENDERED
DERED 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
--Appendix: -Appendix:
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., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, 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 interac-tive interactive
tive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy 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 Pub-lic Public
lic 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" (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If
your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public
License instead of this License.
[End.]
perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLGPL(1)
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