general public law

Related: Co-Owned, GNUrho, GPL, GPLv4 draft 1, Payer Owned, PSF

[[This work is an incomplete transition from GPLv4 draft 1 which is based on GNU GPLv2.]]

The GNU's Not Usury General Public Law as published by the Personal Sovereignty Foundation is an inter-owner free as in freedom trade agreement designed to insure every User of free objects has the freedom to Use(0), Modify(1), Copy(2) and Share(3) those objects.  This is done by requiring any amount paid above cost be treated as an investment from that payer toward physical sources needed for production of more of that kind of object.

Owners of physical property who use this contract are able to scale source freedom creating direct-democracy utilities that are truly public.

                GNU's Not Usury GENERAL PUBLIC LAW
         Discussion Draft 4 of Version 4, October-02-2009

Copyright (C) 2007->oo Personal Sovereignty Foundation, Inc.
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed.

                Preamble

The laws for most objects are designed to take away your freedom to use, modify, copy and share them.  By contrast, the GNU General Public Law is intended to guarantee these freedoms for all versions of an object--to make sure it remains free for all its users.  We, the Personal Sovereignty Foundation, use the GNU General Public Law for all of our public objects; it applies also to any other work released this way by its owners.  You can apply it to your property, too.

When we speak of free objects, we are referring to both freedom and price.  Our General Public Law is designed to make sure that you have the freedom to Use free objects for any purpose, that you may Modify the object or mix it with other free objects, that you may Copy the object, and that you may Share the object or copies of it (and charge for this if you wish), that you may access the Physical Sources of this object, and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights.  Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if you Modify or Share this object instance or copies of it.

For example, if you share copies of such an object, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received.  You must make sure that they, too, receive or can access the Physical Sources.  And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

Owners that use the GNU General Public Law protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert ownership of the object, and (2) offer you this private legislation giving you legal permission to Use, Modify, Copy and Share it.

For the owners' protection, the GPL clearly explains that there is no warranty for this free object.  For both users' and owners' sake, the GPL requires that modified versions be marked as changed, so that their problems will not be attributed erroneously to owners of previous versions.

Some objects are designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so.  This is fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users' freedom to change the object.  The systematic pattern of such abuse occurs in the area of objects for individuals to use, which is precisely where it is most unacceptable.  Therefore, we have designed this version of the GPL to prohibit the practice for those objects.  If such problems arise substantially in other domains, we stand ready to extend this provision to those domains in future versions of the GPL, as needed to protect the freedom of users.

Finally, every object is threatened constantly by software patents.  States should not allow patents to restrict development and use of objects, but in those that do, we wish to avoid the special danger that patents applied to a free object could make it effectively proprietary.  To prevent this, the GPL assures that patents cannot be used to render the object non-free.

The GNU General Public Law is a free, property left contract for any objective and for the physical sources needed to insure the future production of that objective.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

                TERMS AND CONDITIONS

0. Definitions.

“This Law” refers to version 4 of the GNU General Public Law.

“Property Law” means the property laws as defined by any nation, state, county or city that allows private holdings.

“The Object” refers to any physical product or virtual objective held under this Law.  Each user is addressed as “you” and may be an individual or an organization.

To “Use” an object usually means to rent the sources of that object for some time or to buy the object without a time limit.

To “Modify” an object means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring owner permission, other than the making of an exact copy.  The resulting object is called a “modified version” of the earlier object or an object “based on” the earlier object.

To "Copy" an object usually means to rent exclusive access the to the sources of that object for some period of time and to operate those sources for the purpose of creating new object instances.

"Exclusive" generally implies privacy unless explicitly stated in the list of additional terms, as provided in subsection 7b.  Copying includes doing anything with the Object or it's Sources that requires permission under any applicable copyright, property law, patent law, Treaties or Agreements.  This applies only to copies you use in production.  "Production" includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well.

To "Share" an Object means any action which causes the Object to be made available to another User in any form or capacity of access that enables other parties to make or receive copies, excluding subleasing.  Sharing includes the actions:  display, host, perform, project, relay, remote control, rent, sell, serve, share, trade, transfer, transmit, transport.

A “covered work” means either the unmodified Property or a work based on the Property.

To “propagate” a work means to do anything with it that, without permission, would make you directly or secondarily liable for infringement under applicable copyright law, except executing it on a computer or modifying a private copy.  Propagation includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well.

To “convey” a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies.  Mere interaction with a user through a computer net work, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.

An interactive user interface displays “Appropriate Legal Notices” to the extent that it includes a convenient and prominently visible feature that (1) displays an appropriate copyright notice, and (2) tells the user that there is no warranty for the work (except to the extent that warranties are provided), that contractees may convey the work under this Contract, and how to view a copy of this Contract.  If the interface presents a list of user commands or options, such as a menu, a prominent item in the list meets this criterion.
1. Source Code.

The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.  “Object code” means any non-source form of a work.

A “Standard Interface” means an interface that either is an official standard defined by a recognized standards body, or, in the case of interfaces specified for a particular propertyming language, one that is widely used among developers working in that language.

The “System Libraries” of an executable work include anything, other than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that Major Component, or to implement a Standard Interface for which an implementation is available to the public in source code form.  A “Major Component”, in this context, means a major essential component (kernel, window system, and so on) of the specific operating system (if any) on which the executable work runs, or a compiler used to produce the work, or an object code interpreter used to run it.

The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities.  However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free propertys which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work.  For example, Corresponding Source includes interface definition files associated with source files for the work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked subpropertys that the work is specifically designed to require, such as by intimate data communication or control flow between those subpropertys and other parts of the work.

The Corresponding Source need not include anything that users can regenerate automatically from other parts of the Corresponding Source.

The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.
2. Basic Permissions.

All rights granted under this Contract are granted for the term of copyright on the Property, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met.  This Contract explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Property.  The output from running a covered work is covered by this Contract only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work.  This Contract acknowledges your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by copyright law.

You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your contract otherwise remains in force.  You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this Contract in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright.  Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.

Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under the conditions stated below.  Sublicensing is not allowed; section 10 makes it unnecessary.
3. Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law.

No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures.

When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this Contract with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.
4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.

You may convey verbatim copies of the Property's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this Contract and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this Contract along with the Property.

You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.
5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

You may convey a work based on the Property, or the modifications to produce it from the Property, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

    * a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date.
    * b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this Contract and any conditions added under section 7.  This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
    * c) You must offer the entire work, as a whole, under this Contract to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.  This Contract will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.  This Contract gives no permission to trade the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
    * d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Property has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so.

A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger property, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.  Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this Contract to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.
6. Conveying Non-Source Forms.

You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this Contract, in one of these ways:

    * a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange.
    * b) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this Contract, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a net work server at no charge.
    * c) Convey individual copies of the object code with a copy of the written offer to provide the Corresponding Source.  This alternative is allowed only occasionally and noncommercially, and only if you received the object code with such an offer, in accord with subsection 6b.
    * d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge.  You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code.  If the place to copy the object code is a net work server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source.  Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.
    * e) Convey the object code using peer-to-peer transmission, provided you inform other peers where the object code and Corresponding Source of the work are being offered to the general public at no charge under subsection 6d.

A separable portion of the object code, whose source code is excluded from the Corresponding Source as a System Library, need not be included in conveying the object code work.

A “User Product” is either (1) a “consumer product”, which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling.  In determining whether a product is a consumer product, doubtful cases shall be resolved in favor of coverage.  For a particular product received by a particular user, “normally used” refers to a typical or common use of that class of product, regardless of the status of the particular user or of the way in which the particular user actually uses, or expects or is expected to use, the product.  A product is a consumer product regardless of whether the product has substantial commercial, industrial or non-consumer uses, unless such uses represent the only significant mode of use of the product.

“Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source.  The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.

If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information.  But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).

The requirement to provide Installation Information does not include a requirement to continue to provide support service, warranty, or updates for a work that has been modified or installed by the recipient, or for the User Product in which it has been modified or installed.  Access to a net work may be denied when the modification itself materially and adversely affects the operation of the net work or violates the rules and protocols for communication across the net work.

Corresponding Source conveyed, and Installation Information provided, in accord with this section must be in a format that is publicly documented (and with an implementation available to the public in source code form), and must require no special password or key for unpacking, reading or copying.
7. Additional Terms.

“Additional permissions” are terms that supplement the terms of this Contract by making exceptions from one or more of its conditions.  Additional permissions that are applicable to the entire Property shall be treated as though they were included in this Contract, to the extent that they are valid under applicable law.  If additional permissions apply only to part of the Property, that part may be used separately under those permissions, but the entire Property remains governed by this Contract without regard to the additional permissions.

When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of it.  (Additional permissions may be written to require their own removal in certain cases when you modify the work.) You may place additional permissions on material, added by you to a covered work, for which you have or can give appropriate copyright permission.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Contract, for material you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of that material) supplement the terms of this Contract with terms:

    * a) Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from the terms of sections 15 and 16 of this Contract; or
    * b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it; or
    * c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or
    * d) Limiting the use for publicity purposes of names of licensors or authors of the material; or
    * e) Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some trade names, trademarks, or service marks; or
    * f) Requiring indemnification of licensors and authors of that material by anyone who conveys the material (or modified versions of it) with contractual assumptions of liability to the recipient, for any liability that these contractual assumptions directly impose on those licensors and authors.

All other non-permissive additional terms are considered “further restrictions” within the meaning of section 10.  If the Property as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this Contract along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.  If a contract document contains a further restriction but permits relicensing or conveying under this Contract, you may add to a covered work material governed by the terms of that contract document, provided that the further restriction does not survive such relicensing or conveying.

If you add terms to a covered work in accord with this section, you must place, in the relevant source files, a statement of the additional terms that apply to those files, or a notice indicating where to find the applicable terms.

Additional terms, permissive or non-permissive, may be stated in the form of a separately written contract, or stated as exceptions; the above requirements apply either way.
8. Termination.

You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this Contract.  Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this Contract (including any patent contracts granted under the third paragraph of section 11).

However, if you cease all violation of this Contract, then your contract from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your contract, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your contract from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this Contract (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.

Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the contracts of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this Contract.  If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new contracts for the same material under section 10.
9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

You are not required to accept this Contract in order to receive or run a copy of the Property.  Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance.  However, nothing other than this Contract grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work.  These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this Contract.  Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this Contract to do so.
10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.

Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a contract from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this Contract.  You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this Contract.

An “entity transaction” is a transaction transferring control of an organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an organization, or merging organizations.  If propagation of a covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever contracts to the work the party's predecessor in interest had or could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable efforts.

You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this Contract.  For example, you may not impose a contract fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this Contract, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Property or any portion of it.
11. Patents.

A “contributor” is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this Contract of the Property or a work on which the Property is based.  The work thus contractd is called the contributor's “contributor version”.

A contributor's “essential patent claims” are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this Contract, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version.  For purposes of this definition, “control” includes the right to grant patent subcontracts in a manner consistent with the requirements of this Contract.

Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent contract under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.

In the following three paragraphs, a “patent contract” is any express agreement or commitment, however denominated, not to enforce a patent (such as an express permission to practice a patent or covenant not to sue for patent infringement).  To “grant” such a patent contract to a party means to make such an agreement or commitment not to enforce a patent against the party.

If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a patent contract, and the Corresponding Source of the work is not available for anyone to copy, free of charge and under the terms of this Contract, through a publicly available net work server or other readily accessible means, then you must either (1) cause the Corresponding Source to be so available, or (2) arrange to deprive yourself of the benefit of the patent contract for this particular work, or (3) arrange, in a manner consistent with the requirements of this Contract, to extend the patent contract to downstream recipients.  “Knowingly relying” means you have actual knowledge that, but for the patent contract, your conveying the covered work in a country, or your recipient's use of the covered work in a country, would infringe one or more identifiable patents in that country that you have reason to believe are valid.

If, pursuant to or in connection with a single transaction or arrangement, you convey, or propagate by procuring conveyance of, a covered work, and grant a patent contract to some of the parties receiving the covered work authorizing them to use, propagate, modify or convey a specific copy of the covered work, then the patent contract you grant is automatically extended to all recipients of the covered work and works based on it.

A patent contract is “discriminatory” if it does not include within the scope of its coverage, prohibits the exercise of, or is conditioned on the non-exercise of one or more of the rights that are specifically granted under this Contract.  You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a discriminatory patent contract (a) in connection with copies of the covered work conveyed by you (or copies made from those copies), or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific products or compilations that contain the covered work, unless you entered into that arrangement, or that patent contract was granted, prior to 28 March 2007.

Nothing in this Contract shall be construed as excluding or limiting any implied contract or other defenses to infringement that may otherwise be available to you under applicable patent law.

12. No Surrender of Others' Freedom.

If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this Contract, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this Contract.  If you cannot convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this Contract and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey it at all.  For example, if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from those to whom you convey the Property, the only way you could satisfy both those terms and this Contract would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Property.

13. Use with other contracts.

14. Revised Versions of this Contract.

The Personal Sovereignty Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public Law 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 Property specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public Law “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Personal Sovereignty Foundation.  If the Property does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public Law, you may choose any version ever published by the Personal Sovereignty Foundation.

If the Property specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public Law can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Property.

Later contract versions may give you additional or different permissions.  However, no additional obligations are imposed on any author or copyright holder as a result of your choosing to follow a later version.
15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROPERTY, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROPERTY “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 PROPERTY IS WITH YOU.  SHOULD THE PROPERTY PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
16. Limitation of Liability.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROPERTY 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 PROPERTY (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 PROPERTY TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROPERTYS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
17. Interpretation of Sections 15 and 16.

If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided above cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms, reviewing courts shall apply local law that most closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Property, unless a warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Property in return for a fee.

                END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Propertys

If you develop a new property, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the property. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively state the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

    <one line to give the property's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>

    This property is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public Law as published by
    the Personal Sovereignty Foundation, either version 3 of the Contract, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This property is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public Law for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public Law
    along with this property.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/contracts/>.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the property does terminal interaction, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

    <property>  Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>
    This property comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the GNU General Public Law.  Of course, your property's commands might be different; for a GUI interface, you would use an "about box".

You should also get your employer (if you work as a propertymer) or school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the property, if necessary.

This General Public Law does not permit incorporating your Object into proprietary Objects.  To accomplish that, just GPL the proprietary Objects before you begin.
----EOF

====Example: "'An apple'" as the free object.
Use(0): You might just eat the apple.  Notice this is also a modification(1).

Modify(1): You may mix the apple with other Free objects to make pie.

Copy(2): If you paid more than production costs for the apple, you have paid what is traditionally known as 'profit'.  This DEED requires the seller treat that portion of your payment as YOUR investment in physical sources (an apple tree) and it's supporting sources (land, water rights, tools) needed for future production of more objects of that type (more 'copies' of those genetics).

Share(3): You might sell or give the apple or pie to someone else.

If you share, sell, trade, give, or convey the apple or pie:
A. It must be accompanied by a copy of the GPLv4 DEED text as a paper tag or written on the pie tin or maybe even cut into the surface of the object with a laser.

B. Any amount you charge above cost must be treated as that new user's investment in trees, land, water rights, tools, etc.

====Example objective: "'Tilled earth'"
====Example objective: "'Participation in a social net work'"

==Comments
Owners may apply this contract to any Object (whether the Object is physical or virtual) to create Free (not zero cost) public utilities for all current and *future* Users.  This is accomplish by insuring the physical Sources of those Objects are purchased and maintained according to the amount that User pays above the cost of production for the Object being traded.

At the point of sale, the part normally called `profit' is offered to the User as an investment in his name toward the physical Sources such as land, tools, buildings and plants which will be used to create more objects.

In this way every Object User becomes a competitor in production to every other Object User while jointly owning the physical sources of production with those same users.

Cars, computers, spaghetti and beer can be copied; you just need to own the physical sources and employ the workers.

The purchase and installation of more physical Sources and the maintenance, security and storage of what we already have will be used to make more copies of that Object in the future.

The Source ownership of a user grows as he pays above cost because that profit is treated as an investment in more sources held under the same law - so all Users may Use, Modify, Copy and Share the objects of free sources.

Every user becomes a partial controlling owner in the sources of production based on the amount they are willing to pay above cost.  What is usually called profit is now an investment for that consumer to grow.

This property left treaty is designed to localize and optimize users' freedom to govern their own physical sources of production.

This legislation covers physical sources directly, while all associated virtual sources (designs, genetics, ideas, software, movies, etc.) are automatically covered by the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License.