The K Desktop Environment

15.6. GNU General Public License

The following is a copy of the GNU general public license, version 2. If you do not know what it is good for, here a short synopsis:

KDE and the results of the KDP project team's work are meant to be available to the public, for the benefit of everyone. But making it PD or Freeware would not protect the work in the necessary way. Nobody would prevent commercial software companies from abusing our work to speed up their own development process. This is why the GPL is KDE's choice.

  
 		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE 
 		       Version 2, June 1991 
  
  Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 
                           675 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 
  Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies 
  of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. 
  
 			    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. 
   
 		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE 
    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.