Preamble
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook,
or other functional and useful document free
in the sense of
freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and
redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially
or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the
author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not
being considered responsible for modifications made by
others.
This License is a kind of copyleft
, which means that
derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the
same sense. It complements the , which is a copyleft license
designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals
for free software, because free software needs free documentation:
a free program should come with manuals providing the same
freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited
to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work,
regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a
printed book. We recommend this License principally for works
whose purpose is instruction or reference.