Linus Torvalds | 1da177e | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 | [diff] [blame^] | 1 | |
| 2 | NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel |
| 3 | services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use |
| 4 | of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". |
| 5 | Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software |
| 6 | Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux |
| 7 | kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel |
| 10 | is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not |
| 11 | v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Linus Torvalds |
| 14 | |
| 15 | ---------------------------------------- |
| 16 | |
| 17 | GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE |
| 18 | Version 2, June 1991 |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
| 21 | 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA |
| 22 | Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies |
| 23 | of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Preamble |
| 26 | |
| 27 | The licenses for most software are designed to take away your |
| 28 | freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public |
| 29 | License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free |
| 30 | software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This |
| 31 | General Public License applies to most of the Free Software |
| 32 | Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to |
| 33 | using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by |
| 34 | the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to |
| 35 | your programs, too. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not |
| 38 | price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you |
| 39 | have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for |
| 40 | this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it |
| 41 | if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it |
| 42 | in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid |
| 45 | anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. |
| 46 | These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you |
| 47 | distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether |
| 50 | gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that |
| 51 | you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the |
| 52 | source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their |
| 53 | rights. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and |
| 56 | (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, |
| 57 | distribute and/or modify the software. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain |
| 60 | that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free |
| 61 | software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we |
| 62 | want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so |
| 63 | that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original |
| 64 | authors' reputations. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software |
| 67 | patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free |
| 68 | program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the |
| 69 | program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any |
| 70 | patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and |
| 73 | modification follow. |
| 74 | |
| 75 | GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE |
| 76 | TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION |
| 77 | |
| 78 | 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains |
| 79 | a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed |
| 80 | under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, |
| 81 | refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" |
| 82 | means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: |
| 83 | that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, |
| 84 | either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another |
| 85 | language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in |
| 86 | the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you". |
| 87 | |
| 88 | Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not |
| 89 | covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of |
| 90 | running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program |
| 91 | is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the |
| 92 | Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). |
| 93 | Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's |
| 96 | source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you |
| 97 | conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate |
| 98 | copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the |
| 99 | notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; |
| 100 | and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License |
| 101 | along with the Program. |
| 102 | |
| 103 | You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and |
| 104 | you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion |
| 107 | of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and |
| 108 | distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 |
| 109 | above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: |
| 110 | |
| 111 | a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices |
| 112 | stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. |
| 113 | |
| 114 | b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in |
| 115 | whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any |
| 116 | part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third |
| 117 | parties under the terms of this License. |
| 118 | |
| 119 | c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively |
| 120 | when run, you must cause it, when started running for such |
| 121 | interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an |
| 122 | announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a |
| 123 | notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide |
| 124 | a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under |
| 125 | these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this |
| 126 | License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but |
| 127 | does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on |
| 128 | the Program is not required to print an announcement.) |
| 129 | |
| 130 | These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If |
| 131 | identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, |
| 132 | and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in |
| 133 | themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those |
| 134 | sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you |
| 135 | distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based |
| 136 | on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of |
| 137 | this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the |
| 138 | entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. |
| 139 | |
| 140 | Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest |
| 141 | your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to |
| 142 | exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or |
| 143 | collective works based on the Program. |
| 144 | |
| 145 | In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program |
| 146 | with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of |
| 147 | a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under |
| 148 | the scope of this License. |
| 149 | |
| 150 | 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, |
| 151 | under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of |
| 152 | Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: |
| 153 | |
| 154 | a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable |
| 155 | source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections |
| 156 | 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, |
| 157 | |
| 158 | b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three |
| 159 | years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your |
| 160 | cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete |
| 161 | machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be |
| 162 | distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium |
| 163 | customarily used for software interchange; or, |
| 164 | |
| 165 | c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer |
| 166 | to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is |
| 167 | allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you |
| 168 | received the program in object code or executable form with such |
| 169 | an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.) |
| 170 | |
| 171 | The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for |
| 172 | making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source |
| 173 | code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any |
| 174 | associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to |
| 175 | control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a |
| 176 | special exception, the source code distributed need not include |
| 177 | anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary |
| 178 | form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the |
| 179 | operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component |
| 180 | itself accompanies the executable. |
| 181 | |
| 182 | If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering |
| 183 | access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent |
| 184 | access to copy the source code from the same place counts as |
| 185 | distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not |
| 186 | compelled to copy the source along with the object code. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program |
| 189 | except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt |
| 190 | otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is |
| 191 | void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. |
| 192 | However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under |
| 193 | this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such |
| 194 | parties remain in full compliance. |
| 195 | |
| 196 | 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not |
| 197 | signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or |
| 198 | distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are |
| 199 | prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by |
| 200 | modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the |
| 201 | Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and |
| 202 | all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying |
| 203 | the Program or works based on it. |
| 204 | |
| 205 | 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the |
| 206 | Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the |
| 207 | original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to |
| 208 | these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further |
| 209 | restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. |
| 210 | You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to |
| 211 | this License. |
| 212 | |
| 213 | 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent |
| 214 | infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), |
| 215 | conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or |
| 216 | otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not |
| 217 | excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot |
| 218 | distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this |
| 219 | License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you |
| 220 | may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent |
| 221 | license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by |
| 222 | all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then |
| 223 | the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to |
| 224 | refrain entirely from distribution of the Program. |
| 225 | |
| 226 | If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under |
| 227 | any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to |
| 228 | apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other |
| 229 | circumstances. |
| 230 | |
| 231 | It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any |
| 232 | patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any |
| 233 | such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the |
| 234 | integrity of the free software distribution system, which is |
| 235 | implemented by public license practices. Many people have made |
| 236 | generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed |
| 237 | through that system in reliance on consistent application of that |
| 238 | system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing |
| 239 | to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot |
| 240 | impose that choice. |
| 241 | |
| 242 | This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to |
| 243 | be a consequence of the rest of this License. |
| 244 | |
| 245 | 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in |
| 246 | certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the |
| 247 | original copyright holder who places the Program under this License |
| 248 | may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding |
| 249 | those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among |
| 250 | countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates |
| 251 | the limitation as if written in the body of this License. |
| 252 | |
| 253 | 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions |
| 254 | of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will |
| 255 | be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to |
| 256 | address new problems or concerns. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program |
| 259 | specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any |
| 260 | later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions |
| 261 | either of that version or of any later version published by the Free |
| 262 | Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of |
| 263 | this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software |
| 264 | Foundation. |
| 265 | |
| 266 | 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free |
| 267 | programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author |
| 268 | to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free |
| 269 | Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes |
| 270 | make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals |
| 271 | of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and |
| 272 | of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally. |
| 273 | |
| 274 | NO WARRANTY |
| 275 | |
| 276 | 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY |
| 277 | FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN |
| 278 | OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES |
| 279 | PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED |
| 280 | OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF |
| 281 | MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS |
| 282 | TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE |
| 283 | PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, |
| 284 | REPAIR OR CORRECTION. |
| 285 | |
| 286 | 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING |
| 287 | WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR |
| 288 | REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, |
| 289 | INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING |
| 290 | OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED |
| 291 | TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY |
| 292 | YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER |
| 293 | PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE |
| 294 | POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS |
| 297 | |
| 298 | How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs |
| 299 | |
| 300 | If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest |
| 301 | possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it |
| 302 | free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. |
| 303 | |
| 304 | To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest |
| 305 | to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively |
| 306 | convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least |
| 307 | the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found. |
| 308 | |
| 309 | <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.> |
| 310 | Copyright (C) <year> <name of author> |
| 311 | |
| 312 | This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify |
| 313 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
| 314 | the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or |
| 315 | (at your option) any later version. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
| 318 | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
| 319 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the |
| 320 | GNU General Public License for more details. |
| 321 | |
| 322 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
| 323 | along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software |
| 324 | Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA |
| 325 | |
| 326 | |
| 327 | Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail. |
| 328 | |
| 329 | If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this |
| 330 | when it starts in an interactive mode: |
| 331 | |
| 332 | Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author |
| 333 | Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. |
| 334 | This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it |
| 335 | under certain conditions; type `show c' for details. |
| 336 | |
| 337 | The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate |
| 338 | parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may |
| 339 | be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be |
| 340 | mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program. |
| 341 | |
| 342 | You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your |
| 343 | school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if |
| 344 | necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names: |
| 345 | |
| 346 | Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program |
| 347 | `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker. |
| 348 | |
| 349 | <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989 |
| 350 | Ty Coon, President of Vice |
| 351 | |
| 352 | This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into |
| 353 | proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may |
| 354 | consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the |
| 355 | library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General |
| 356 | Public License instead of this License. |