How should LICENSE relationships be?

Hello,

The topic of licenses is a bit complex. Here is a situation:

We are developing an open source project under the “MIT” license, and within this project, we will use software with different licenses. We will make changes and additions to these software components as needed (to the extent permitted).

So, how can we prevent a license maze in this situation? For example, if we modify and use a GPL-licensed software within our project, would it be an issue for our project to be under the MIT license? Or is it sufficient to specify the license of that particular part of the software as GPL? When the project is completed and emerges as a whole, can it be under MIT while containing different licenses?

Thank you in advance for your explanations, and I would appreciate it if you could provide sources with examples related to this topic.

pewgar_seemsimandroid,

Samsung uses open source licenses

runefehay,

Not a lawyer and it has been a while since I studied this, but when one open source project uses another, they aren't really transforming the others code into a new license.

When GNU/FSF says a license is compatible with the GPL, they mean you can legally use the code with the GPL. More or less, the FSF says if you use a GPL code the entire project has to give end users all the freedoms in the GPL. The LGPL is slightly different in that it can be a separate library. They consider even dynamic linking a GPL project to require both projects to be covered under GPL.

This is why proprietary developers call the GPL "viral." GPL code "infects" all other code with its license. This is the deal you make when you use GPL code, and I think it is a fair one. You don't have to use their code.

I suggest you read the licensing bits of the Free Software Foundation's website. fsf.org and gnu.org

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Programmers often have trouble with legal matters because the law looks like code, but it doesn't actually act like code. There isn't a clearly pre-defined and objective standard for determining what the result would be if you took a particular case to court. Ultimately if this is a significant project with an actual budget I would allocate some of that budget to pay for consultation with a lawyer, who will then tell you "I think doing it in such-and-such a way will probably be safe, according to this-and-that recent precedent where something similar was litigated. But you'll never be absolutely sure until the court has ruled on your case after someone sues you."

That said, once or twice I've been working on a little game mod where I can't imagine anyone ever actually being interested in suing me and found myself wanting to include some code from an LGPLed project into my MITed project. What I did in that situation was to confine all the LGPLed code to a specific subdirectory within my project and ensured that it only interacted with the rest of my project via an internal API. Definitely don't mix code with different licenses into the same source file. I'm no lawyer, but that seemed like it was likely an adequate way of putting a legal firewall between the two.

If the two chunks of code under different licences are substantial, perhaps consider making two different repositories for them. In my case everything that was LGPLed fit into a single source file so that would have been a huge waste of effort.

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