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.