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<section>
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<title>Preamble</title>
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<para>The licenses for most software are designed to take away
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your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General
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Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and
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change free software–to make sure the software is free for
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all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the
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Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose
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authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation
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software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License
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instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.</para>
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<para>When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom,
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not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure
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that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software
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(and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source
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code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the
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software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you
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know you can do these things.</para>
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<para>To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that
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forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender
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the rights. These restrictions translate to certain
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responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software,
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or if you modify it.</para>
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<para>For example, if you distribute copies of such a program,
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whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the
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rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive
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or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so
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they know their rights.</para>
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<para>We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the
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software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal
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permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.</para>
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<para>Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make
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certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for
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this free software. If the software is modified by someone else
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and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have
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is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others
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will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.</para>
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<para>Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by
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software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors
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of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in
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effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have
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made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free
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use or not licensed at all.</para>
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<para>The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution
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and modification follow.</para>
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</section>
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