from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
GNU Free Documentation License
GFDL
<legal> (GFDL) The {Free Software Foundation}'s license
designed to ensure the same freedoms for {documentation} that
the {GPL} gives to {software}.
This dictionary is distributed under the GFDL, see the
copyright notice in the {Free On-line Dictionary of Computing}
section (at the start of the source file). The full text
follows.
Version 1.1, March 2000
Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
0. PREAMBLE
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or
other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to
assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute
it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or
noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the
author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while
not being considered responsible for modifications made by
others.
This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that
derivative works of the document must themselves be free in
the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public
License, which is a copyleft license designed for free
software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals
for free software, because free software needs free
documentation: a free program should come with manuals
providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this
License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for
any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it
is published as a printed book. We recommend this License
principally for works whose purpose is instruction or
reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work that contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be
distributed under the terms of this License. The "Document",
below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the
public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you".
A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing
the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or
with modifications and/or translated into another language.
A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter
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The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose
titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections,
in the notice that says that the Document is released under
this License.
The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are
listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the
notice that says that the Document is released under this
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A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable
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The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page
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page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most
prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the
beginning of the body of the text.
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License,
the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this
License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies,
and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of
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make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in
exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number
of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated
above, and you may publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more
than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover
Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry,
clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts
on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover.
Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the
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visible. You may add other material on the covers in
addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long
as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these
conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other
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If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to
fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as
fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest
onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document
numbering more than 100, you must either include a
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at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque
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edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the
authors of the Document well before redistributing any large
number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an
updated version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document
under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that
you release the Modified Version under precisely this License,
with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document,
thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified
Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you
must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title
distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous
versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the
History section of the Document). You may use the same title
as a previous version if the original publisher of that
version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or
entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in
the Modified Version, together with at least five of the
principal authors of the Document (all of its principal
authors, if it has less than five).
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
adjacent to the other copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license
notice giving the public permission to use the Modified
Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in
the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant
Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's
license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and
add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new
authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the
Title Page. If there is no section entitled "History" in the
Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and
publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add
an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the
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J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the
Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the
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Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be
placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network
location for a work that was published at least four years
before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of
the version it refers to gives permission.
K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgements" or
"Dedications", preserve the section's title, and preserve in
the section all the substance and tone of each of the
contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document,
unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers
or the equivalent are not considered part of the section
titles.
M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section
may not be included in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to
conflict in title with any Invariant Section. If the Modified
Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that
qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied
from the Document, you may at your option designate some or
all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their
titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified
Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from
any other section titles.
You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it
contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by
various parties--for example, statements of peer review or
that the text has been approved by an organization as the
authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover
Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to
the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified
Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of
Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made
by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover
text for the same cover, previously added by you or by
arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf
of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one,
on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added
the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this
License give permission to use their names for publicity for
or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released
under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above
for modified versions, provided that you include in the
combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the
original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant
Sections of your combined work in its license notice.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License,
and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with
a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with
the same name but different contents, make the title of each
such section unique by adding at the end of it, in
parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of
that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same
adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant
Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled
"History" in the various original documents, forming one
section entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections
entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections entitled
"Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled
"Endorsements."
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other
documents released under this License, and replace the
individual copies of this License in the various documents
with a single copy that is included in the collection,
provided that you follow the rules of this License for
verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other
respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and
distribute it individually under this License, provided you
insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and
follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim
copying of that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other
separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume
of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count
as a Modified Version of the Document, provided no compilation
copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation
is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply to
the other self-contained works thus compiled with the
Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are
not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to
these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less
than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover
Texts may be placed on covers that surround only the Document
within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers
around the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
distribute translations of the Document under the terms of
section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations
requires special permission from their copyright holders, but
you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections
in addition to the original versions of these Invariant
Sections. You may include a translation of this License
provided that you also include the original English version of
this License. In case of a disagreement between the
translation and the original English version of this License,
the original English version will prevail.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the
Document except as expressly provided for under this
License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or
distribute the Document 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.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
of the GNU Free Documentation 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.
See here (http://gnu.org/copyleft/).
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version
number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered
version of this License "or any later version" applies to it,
you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that specified version or of any later version that
has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software
Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number
of this License, you may choose any version ever published
(not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
End of full text of GFDL.
(2002-03-09)