More precisely, free software means users of a program have the four essential freedoms :. Developments in technology and network use have made these freedoms even more important now than they were in Nowadays the free software movement goes far beyond developing the GNU system.
See the Free Software Foundation's web site for more about what we do, and a list of ways you can help. GNU is a Unix-like operating system. That means it is a collection of many programs: applications, libraries, developer tools, even games. GNU is typically used with a kernel called Linux. Volunteers continue developing the Hurd because it is an interesting technical project. More information.
This year, choose Freedom as a gift. Here's an Ethical Tech Giving Guide. UK universities find that many students are fed up with virtual courses and want to attend class physically. Others feel the opposite. These libraries are also linked with the interpreter. If the interpreter is linked statically with these libraries, or if it is designed to link dynamically with these specific libraries , then it too needs to be released in a GPL-compatible way.
Another similar and very common case is to provide libraries with the interpreter which are themselves interpreted. For instance, Perl comes with many Perl modules, and a Java implementation comes with many Java classes. These libraries and the programs that call them are always dynamically linked together. A consequence is that if you choose to use GPLed Perl modules or Java classes in your program, you must release the program in a GPL-compatible way, regardless of the license used in the Perl or Java interpreter that the combined Perl or Java program will run on.
You may link your program to these libraries, and distribute the compiled program to others. That means that you don't need to worry about including their source code with the program's Corresponding Source. GPLv2 provides a similar exception in section 3. You may not distribute these libraries in compiled DLL form with the program.
To prevent unscrupulous distributors from trying to use the System Library exception as a loophole, the GPL says that libraries can only qualify as System Libraries as long as they're not distributed with the program itself. If you distribute the DLLs with the program, they won't be eligible for this exception anymore; then the only way to comply with the GPL would be to provide their source code, which you are unable to do.
It is possible to write free programs that only run on Windows, but it is not a good idea. Because it imposes a specific requirement that is not in the GPL; namely, the requirement on advertisements of the program.
Section 6 of GPLv2 states:. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. GPLv3 says something similar in section The advertising clause provides just such a further restriction, and thus is GPL-incompatible. It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined program.
A main program that uses simple fork and exec to invoke plug-ins and does not establish intimate communication between them results in the plug-ins being a separate program. If the main program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single combined program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins.
Using shared memory to communicate with complex data structures is pretty much equivalent to dynamic linking. Please see this question for determining when plug-ins and a main program are considered a single combined program and when they are considered separate works.
If the main program and the plugins are a single combined program then this means you must license the plug-in under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license and distribute it with source code in a GPL-compliant way.
A main program that is separate from its plug-ins makes no requirements for the plug-ins. Please see this question for determining when plug-ins and a main program are considered a single combined program and when they are considered separate programs.
If they form a single combined program this means that combination of the GPL-covered plug-in with the nonfree main program would violate the GPL. However, you can resolve that legal problem by adding an exception to your plug-in's license, giving permission to link it with the nonfree main program. See also the question I am writing free software that uses a nonfree library.
If they form a single combined program then the main program must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and the terms of the GPL must be followed when the main program is distributed for use with these plug-ins. However, if they are separate works then the license of the plug-in makes no requirements about the main program.
Not exactly. It means you must release your program under a license compatible with the GPL more precisely, compatible with one or more GPL versions accepted by all the rest of the code in the combination that you link. The combination itself is then available under those GPL versions. You can ask, but most authors will stand firm and say no. The idea of the GPL is that if you want to include our code in your program, your program must also be free software.
It is supposed to put pressure on you to release your program in a way that makes it part of our community. Does distributing a nonfree driver meant to link with Linux violate the GPL? Yes, this is a violation, because effectively this makes a larger combined work. The fact that the user is expected to put the pieces together does not really change anything. Each contributor to Linux who holds copyright on a substantial part of the code can enforce the GPL and we encourage each of them to take action against those distributing nonfree Linux-drivers.
Add this text to the license notice of each file in the package, at the end of the text that says the file is distributed under the GNU GPL:. Note that people who make modified versions of ABC are not obligated to grant this special exception for their modified versions; it is their choice whether to do so.
If you modify the ABCDEF interface, this exception does not apply to your modified version of ABC, and you must remove this exception when you distribute your modified version. Only the copyright holders for the program can legally authorize this exception.
To answer this question, we would need to see a list of each component that your program uses, the license of that component, and a brief a few sentences for each should suffice describing how your library uses that component. Two examples would be:. The GPL permits you to create and distribute an aggregate, even when the licenses of the other software are nonfree or GPL-incompatible.
The only condition is that you cannot release the aggregate under a license that prohibits users from exercising rights that each program's individual license would grant them. Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.
If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program.
By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program.
No, the analysis of whether they are a single work or an aggregate is unchanged by the involvement of containers. Our lawyers have told us that to be in the best position to enforce the GPL in court against violators, we should keep the copyright status of the program as simple as possible.
We do this by asking each contributor to either assign the copyright on contributions to the FSF, or disclaim copyright on contributions. We also ask individual contributors to get copyright disclaimers from their employers if any so that we can be sure those employers won't claim to own the contributions. Of course, if all the contributors put their code in the public domain, there is no copyright with which to enforce the GPL. So we encourage people to assign copyright on large code contributions, and only put small changes in the public domain.
If you want to make an effort to enforce the GPL on your program, it is probably a good idea for you to follow a similar policy. It is possible to make modified versions of the GPL, but it tends to have practical consequences. You can legally use the GPL terms possibly modified in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU though the actual procedure you describe may be similar.
For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them. Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it.
Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL , and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL. These requirements are the condition for including the GPL-covered code you received in a program of your own.
The GPL defines this as the preferred form of the work for making changes in it. However, for manuals and textbooks, or more generally any sort of work that is meant to teach a subject, we recommend using the GFDL rather than the GPL.
See this article for details. It works as designed, intended, and expected. Nothing required Y to agree to any other license for its code. Therefore, X must get Y's permission before releasing that code under another license. You cannot incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system. The goal of the GPL is to grant everyone the freedom to copy, redistribute, understand, and modify a program.
If you could incorporate GPL-covered software into a nonfree system, it would have the effect of making the GPL-covered software nonfree too. A system incorporating a GPL-covered program is an extended version of that program.
This is for two reasons: to make sure that users who get the software get the freedom they should have, and to encourage people to give back improvements that they make. However, in many cases you can distribute the GPL-covered software alongside your proprietary system. To do this validly, you must make sure that the free and nonfree programs communicate at arms length, that they are not combined in a way that would make them effectively a single program. The substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that they become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat them as two separate programs.
So the GPL has to cover the whole thing. If the two programs remain well separated, like the compiler and the kernel, or like an editor and a shell, then you can treat them as two separate programs—but you have to do it properly. The issue is simply one of form: how you describe what you are doing. Why do we care about this? Because we want to make sure the users clearly understand the free status of the GPL-covered software in the collection. But if they know that what they have received is a free program plus another program, side by side, their rights will be clear.
But if you were to incorporate them both in a larger program, that whole would include the GPL-covered part, so it would have to be licensed as a whole under the GNU GPL. The fact that proprietary module A communicates with GPL-covered module C only through Xlicensed module B is legally irrelevant; what matters is the fact that module C is included in the whole.
The exception is meant to allow people to distribute programs compiled with GCC under terms of their choice, even when parts of these libraries are included in the executable as part of the compilation process. There are two reasons for this. First, a general one. If we permitted company A to make a proprietary file, and company B to distribute GPL-covered software linked with that file, the effect would be to make a hole in the GPL big enough to drive a truck through.
This would be carte blanche for withholding the source code for all sorts of modifications and extensions to GPL-covered software. Giving all users access to the source code is one of our main goals, so this consequence is definitely something we want to avoid. More concretely, the versions of the programs linked with the Money Guzzler libraries would not really be free software as we understand the term—they would not come with full source code that enables users to change and recompile the program.
If the license of module Q permits you to give permission for that, then it is GPL-compatible. Otherwise, it is not GPL-compatible. If the license for Q says in no uncertain terms that you must do certain things not compatible with the GPL when you redistribute Q on its own, then it does not permit you to distribute Q under the GPL. So you cannot link or combine P with Q. The whole point of the GPL is that all modified versions must be free software —which means, in particular, that the source code of the modified version is available to the users.
The general rule is, if you distribute binaries, you must distribute the complete corresponding source code too. The exception for the case where you received a written offer for source code is quite limited. Version 3 of the GPL allows this; see option 6 b for the full details. Under version 2, you're certainly free to offer source via FTP, and most users will get it from there.
However, if any of them would rather get the source on physical media by mail, you are required to provide that. Yes, you can. The offer must be open to everyone who has a copy of the binary that it accompanies. This is why the GPL says your friend must give you a copy of the offer along with a copy of the binary—so you can take advantage of it.
Section 6 d allows this. However, you must provide clear instructions people can follow to obtain the source, and you must take care to make sure that the source remains available for as long as you distribute the object code. No, you must supply the source code that corresponds to the binary. Corresponding source means the source from which users can rebuild the same binary. Part of the idea of free software is that users should have access to the source code for the programs they use.
Those using your version should have access to the source code for your version. A major goal of the GPL is to build up the Free World by making sure that improvement to a free program are themselves free. This is a well-meaning request, but this method of providing the source doesn't really do the job. A user that wants the source a year from now may be unable to get the proper version from another site at that time.
The standard distribution site may have a newer version, but the same diffs probably won't work with that version. If you make object code available on a network server, you have to provide the Corresponding Source on a network server as well.
The easiest way to do this would be to publish them on the same server, but if you'd like, you can alternatively provide instructions for getting the source from another server, or even a version control system.
No matter what you do, the source should be just as easy to access as the object code, though. This is all specified in section 6 d of GPLv3. The sources you provide must correspond exactly to the binaries.
In particular, you must make sure they are for the same version of the program—not an older version and not a newer version. You don't have to make sure of this. As long as you make the source and binaries available so that the users can see what's available and take what they want, you have done what is required of you.
It is up to the user whether to download the source. Our requirements for redistributors are intended to make sure the users can get the source code, not to force users to download the source code even if they don't want it. Complete corresponding source means the source that the binaries were made from, but that does not imply your tools must be able to make a binary that is an exact hash of the binary you are distributing. In some cases it could be nearly impossible to build a binary from source with an exact hash of the binary being distributed — consider the following examples: a system might put timestamps in binaries; or the program might have been built against a different even unreleased compiler version.
The GPL permits anyone to make a modified version and use it without ever distributing it to others. What this company is doing is a special case of that. Therefore, the company does not have to release the modified sources. Compare this to a situation where the web site contains or links to separate GPLed programs that are distributed to the user when they visit the web site often written in JavaScript , but other languages are used as well.
In this situation the source code for the programs being distributed must be released to the user under the terms of the GPL. The GNU Affero GPL requires that modified versions of the software offer all users interacting with it over a computer network an opportunity to receive the source.
What the company is doing falls under that meaning, so the company must release the modified source code. No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modified version and install that version through its own facilities, without giving the staff permission to release that modified version to outsiders. However, when the organization transfers copies to other organizations or individuals, that is distribution.
In particular, providing copies to contractors for use off-site is distribution. If the version has been released elsewhere, then the thief probably does have the right to make copies and redistribute them under the GPL, but if the thief is imprisoned for stealing the CD, they may have to wait until their release before doing so. If the version in question is unpublished and considered by a company to be its trade secret, then publishing it may be a violation of trade secret law, depending on other circumstances.
The GPL does not change that. If the company tried to release its version and still treat it as a trade secret, that would violate the GPL, but if the company hasn't released this version, no such violation has occurred. The company has violated the GPL and will have to cease distribution of that program. Note how this differs from the theft case above; the company does not intentionally distribute a copy when a copy is stolen, so in that case the company has not violated the GPL.
But it is making two contradictory statements about what you can do with that program: that you can redistribute it, and that you can't. It would make sense to demand clarification of the terms for use of that program before you accept a copy. Using the Lesser GPL for any particular library constitutes a retreat for free software. It means we partially abandon the attempt to defend the users' freedom, and some of the requirements to share what is built on top of GPL-covered software.
In themselves, those are changes for the worse. Sometimes a localized retreat is a good strategy. Sometimes, using the LGPL for a library might lead to wider use of that library, and thus to more improvement for it, wider support for free software, and so on.
This could be good for free software if it happens to a large extent. But how much will this happen? We can only speculate. But this is not feasible.
Once we use the LGPL for a particular library, changing back would be difficult. So we decide which license to use for each library on a case-by-case basis. There is a long explanation of how we judge the question. Maximizing the number of users is not our aim. Rather, we are trying to give the crucial freedoms to as many users as possible.
In general, proprietary software projects hinder rather than help the cause of freedom. We do occasionally make license exceptions to assist a project which is producing free software under a license other than the GPL. However, we have to see a good reason why this will advance the cause of free software.
We also do sometimes change the distribution terms of a package, when that seems clearly the right way to serve the cause of free software; but we are very cautious about this, so you will have to show us very convincing reasons. From time to time, at intervals of years, we change the GPL—sometimes to clarify it, sometimes to permit certain kinds of use not previously permitted, and sometimes to tighten up a requirement.
The last two changes were in and If each program lacked the indirect pointer, we would be forced to discuss the change at length with numerous copyright holders, which would be a virtual impossibility. In practice, the chance of having uniform distribution terms for GNU software would be nil.
If the new GPL version gives additional permission, that permission will be available immediately to all the users of the program. But if the new GPL version has a tighter requirement, it will not restrict use of the current version of the program, because it can still be used under GPL version 3. If a tighter requirement in a new version of the GPL need not be obeyed for existing software, how is it useful? Then users will have to follow the tighter requirements in GPL version 4, for subsequent versions of the program.
However, developers are not obligated to do this; developers can continue allowing use of the previous version of the GPL, if that is their preference. It comes with SIP 2. BiblioteQ This library software is used for professional cataloguing, archiving and managing all the book related transactions. Main Features of BiblioteQ This library software comes with Alpha architecture support It comes with display customization, a lot of self-explanatory documentation, customized item data, currency and pricing information, ARM architecture support It comes with embedded hyperlinks for localized searches of similar items.
It allows exporting views to CSV files. It has Qt 5. It supports requesting unavailable items, has threaded data retrieval via the standard Z It can parse MARC tags. It features listings of overdue items, requested items, and reserved items.
It comes with a PDF reader Opals Opals is an open-source automated library system that is easy to implement, easy to use and very cost-effective. It has OPAC that helps in locating books easily. Fetching reports is easy Configuring and management of the system including library, staff, material, website settings and fines are very easy with this tool.
Invenio Invenio is a free and open-source software to manage digital libraries or document repository on the web. It organizes documents in form of collection trees. It comes with navigation for hierarchical collections, virtual collection trees, and customizable portal boxes for each collection. It comes with repositories that have powerful and fast internal search engine with specially designed indexes. It comes with a simple to advanced search interfaces that are combined with metadata, full text and citation search with clustering by collection.
Librarian It is a complete library management system that provides an automated solution that is helpful for information providers, information managers, resource managers, resource in charge of managing and disseminating available information in form of print and non-print material — books, e-journal, article, dissertation, thesis, newspaper, maps, charts, project reports etc. The reason is that checking them would be difficult and expensive needing the help of bilingual lawyers in other countries.
Even worse, if an error did slip through, the results could be disastrous for the whole free software community. As long as the translations are unofficial, they can't do any legal harm.
To underscore the fact that these translations are not officially valid, we do not publish translations. To make that clear, we don't post them on gnu. It used to be and for a few pages still is :. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Retention of weblinks in both hyperlinked and non-hyperlinked media as notes or some other form of printed URL in non-HTML media is required. The proliferation of different free software licenses means increased work for users in understanding the licenses; we may be able to help you find an existing Free Software license that meets your needs.
If that isn't possible, if you really need a new license, with our help you can ensure that the license really is a Free Software license and avoid various practical problems.
Copyleft is a general method for making a program free software and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well. The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain , uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product.
People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but those users would not have freedom. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it.
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