1PERLGPL(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLGPL(1)
2
6 perlgpl - the GNU General Public License, version 2
7
9 You can refer to this document in Pod via "L<perlgpl>"
10 Or you can see this document by entering "perldoc perlgpl"
11
13 This is "The GNU General Public License, version 2". It's here so that
14 modules, programs, etc., that want to declare this as their
15 distribution license, can link to it.
16 It is also one of the two licenses Perl allows itself to be
18 redistributed and/or modified; for the other one, the Perl Artistic
19 License, see the perlartistic.
20
22 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
23 Version 2, June 1991
24 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
26 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
27 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
28 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
29 Preamble
31 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
33 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
34 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
35 software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
36 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
37 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
38 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
39 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
40 your programs, too.
41 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
43 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
44 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
45 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
46 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
47 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
48 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
50 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
51 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
52 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
53 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
55 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
56 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
57 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
58 rights.
59 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
61 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
62 distribute and/or modify the software.
63 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
65 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
66 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
67 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
68 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
69 authors' reputations.
70 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
72 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
73 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
74 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
75 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
76 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
78 modification follow.
79 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
81 TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
82 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
84 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
85 under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
86 refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
87 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
88 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
89 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
90 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
91 the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
92 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
94 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
95 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
96 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
97 (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that
98 is true depends on what the Program does.
99 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
101 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
102 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
103 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
104 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
105 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
106 along with the Program.
107 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
109 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
110 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
112 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
113 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
114 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
115 a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
117 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
118 b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
120 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
121 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
122 parties under the terms of this License.
123 c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
125 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
126 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
127 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
128 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
129 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
130 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
131 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
132 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
133 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
134 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
136 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
137 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
138 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
139 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
140 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
141 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
142 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
143 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote
144 it.
145 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
147 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
148 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
149 collective works based on the Program.
150 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
152 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a
153 storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the
154 scope of this License.
155 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
157 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
158 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
159 a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
161 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
162 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
163 interchange; or,
164 b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
166 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
167 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
168 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
169 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
170 customarily used for software interchange; or,
171 c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
173 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
174 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
175 received the program in object code or executable form with such
176 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
177 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
179 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
180 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
181 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control
182 compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special
183 exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that
184 is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the
185 major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system
186 on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies
187 the executable.
188 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access
190 to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to
191 copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the
192 source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the
193 source along with the object code.
194 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
196 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
197 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
198 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
199 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
200 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
201 parties remain in full compliance.
202 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
204 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
205 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
206 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
207 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
208 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
209 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
210 the Program or works based on it.
211 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
213 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
214 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
215 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
216 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
217 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
218 this License.
219 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
221 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
222 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
223 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
224 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
225 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
226 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
227 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
228 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
229 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
230 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
231 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
232 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
234 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
235 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
236 circumstances.
237 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
239 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
240 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
241 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
242 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
243 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
244 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
245 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
246 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
247 impose that choice.
248 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
250 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
251 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
253 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
254 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
255 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
256 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
257 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
258 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
259 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
261 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
262 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
263 address new problems or concerns.
264 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
266 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
267 later version", you have the option of following the terms and
268 conditions either of that version or of any later version published by
269 the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a
270 version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
271 published by the Free Software Foundation.
272 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
274 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
275 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
276 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
277 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
278 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
279 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
280 NO WARRANTY
282 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO
284 WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
285 EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR
286 OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
287 KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
288 IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
289 PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
290 PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME
291 THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
292 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
294 WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY
295 AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU
296 FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR
297 CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE
298 PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING
299 RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A
300 FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF
301 SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
302 DAMAGES.
303 END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
305 How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
307 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
309 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
310 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
311 terms.
312 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
314 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
315 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
316 the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
317 <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
319 Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
320 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
322 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
323 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
324 (at your option) any later version.
325 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
327 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
328 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
329 GNU General Public License for more details.
330 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
332 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
333 Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
334 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
336 mail.
337 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
339 when it starts in an interactive mode:
340 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
342 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
343 This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
344 under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
345 The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
347 appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
348 commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show
349 c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your
350 program.
351 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
353 school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
354 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
355 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
357 `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
358 <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
360 Ty Coon, President of Vice
361 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
363 into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library,
364 you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
365 applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the
366 GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
367 [End.]
369perl v5.10.1 2009-02-12 PERLGPL(1)