The GNU General Public License


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 General
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. 

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 portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
(Hereinafter, 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
copyright 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 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 permissions
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 derivative 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
following: 

    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 installation 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 components (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
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along
with the object code. 

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
automatically 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'
exercise 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, agreement 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 obligations under this License
and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.
For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution 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. 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 distribution is
permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates 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
differ 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 Foundation. 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
conditions 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
derivatives 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 CORRECTION. 

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 RENDERED 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