Cisco Cisco IPICS Release 2.1 Licensing Information

the version number 2.1.]

Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU

General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the

software is free for all its users.

 

This license, the Lesser General Public License, applies to some specially designated software packages--typically

libraries--of the Free Software Foundation and other authors who decide to use it. You can use it too, but we suggest

you first think carefully about whether this license or the ordinary General Public License is the better strategy to

use in any particular case, based on the explanations below.

 

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, 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 and use pieces

of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these things.

 

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to ask you to

surrender these rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the

library or if you modify it.

 

For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the

rights that we gave you. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. If you link other code

with the library, you must provide complete object files to the recipients, so that they can relink them with the

library after making changes to the library and recompiling it. And you must show them these terms so they know

their rights.

 

We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2) we offer you this license, which

gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library.

 

To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty for the free library. Also, if the

library is modified by someone else and passed on, the recipients should know that what they have is not the original

version, so that the original author's reputation will not be affected by problems that might be introduced by others.

 

Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program. We wish to make sure that a

company cannot effectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a restrictive license from a patent

holder. Therefore, we insist that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the

full freedom of use specified in this license.

 

Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License. This

license, the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to certain designated libraries, and is quite different from

the ordinary General Public License. We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries

into non-free programs.

 

When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two is

legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License

therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public

License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.