5 ms·

this is nice - it looks like it's linked against at least one GPL lib (fuzzywuzzy) though, so the MIT license almost certainly isn't allowed. looks like there's

this is nice - it looks like it's linked against at least one GPL lib (fuzzywuzzy) though, so the MIT license almost certainly isn't allowed. looks like there's only one usage though, the other is an unused import, so may be easy to change

moonchild 6y ago
The MIT license is ‘allowed’. The code in itself is MIT licensed. It's just that, when compiled and linked against fuzzywuzzy, the aggregate work that results must be GPLed.
- maximente 6y ago
  interesting: given that it may at any time hit that line of GPL'd code, your claim is that the rest of the code can be MIT licensed? i am not a lawyer but that sure seems like a borderline case at best.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
    The author can licence their source code however they want. The GPL doesn’t relicense other code either, it’s that the GPL asks you to additionally follow its terms for the whole resulting compiled distribution
    - regularfry 6y ago
      This is incorrect, and it's precisely for this sort of situation that the LGPL exists. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL The problem for the author in this case is that a) writing their code against a GPL'd library constitutes creating a derivative work, and b) putting it on GitHub is distribution.
      - moonchild 6y ago
        The page you linked contradicts you: > the terms of the GPL apply to the entire combination. The software modules that link with the library may be under various GPL compatible licenses, but the work as a whole must be licensed under the GPL. The application is a ‘software module’ licensed under the MIT license (a ‘GPL compatible license’). When you link that application against the GPL'd library, the resultant ‘work as a whole’ must be provided under the terms of the GPL. (Since the MIT license allows relicensing, and the GPL does not contradict any of the terms of the MIT license, this is legal. If the MIT license did not allow relicensing, or if it contradicted some term of the GPL, the OP's application would still be legally licensed under the MIT license. It would just be illegal to link it against its GPL'd dependency.)
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        40four 6y ago
        The key part is “but the work as whole must be licensed under the terms of the GPL.” Licenses are freaking confusing :) but I think folks are correct to point this out. My understanding is that all of the new files the author wrote can individuals be licensed MIT, but unfortunately the work as a whole should be GPL.
      - qcoh 6y ago
        From the FAQ, I don't get why the code has to be GPL licensed. It talks about libraries, "entire combinations", "software modules that link" and "work as a whole". On your second point: Can't they argue that they implement against an API, which could be provided by non-GPL software as well?
        lvass 6y ago
        Compatibility with GPL in this case simply means a software distributed in a compatible license like MIT can be combined and distributed under GPL [0]. >On your second point: Can't they argue that they implement against an API, which could be provided by non-GPL software as well? I don't think that is reasonable. A GPL program is specifically named in requirements.txt and imported. It's essentially the same as dynamic linking, that is no more than naming a program and using it's API. If this argument was valid one could also argue it's possible to modify a dynamically linked binary's rpath (can be easily done with patchelf on GNU/linux) from a GPL library to a non-GPL one so dynamically linking a library would never require you to do abide to it's license, which is obviously untrue [1]. [0]http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean [1]http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic
    - coddle-hark 6y ago
      Almost. The author can license their contributions with a more permissive license if they want (e.g. individual files can be MIT licensed) but the software as a whole must be licensed under the GPL. I guess it boils down to whether the LICENSE file is meant to apply to the code in that repo or the software it produces when built. I would expect the latter, but I guess it's a bit ambiguous since we're having this discussion.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- lmm 6y ago
  Coding against a library is usually understood to result in creating something that's a derivative work of that library.
  - moonchild 6y ago
    The act of linking against a library produces a derivative work of that library. But since APIs are not copyrightable (in europe, at least), the act of using an API does not produce a derivative work, and thus code which uses an API is not bound to any particular license wrt it.
    - oezi 6y ago
      There is a pretty clear line between using an API and using the code behind it. The line between an API and code describing and documenting that API is quite fine. See Google vs Oracle.
      - moonchild 6y ago
        > See Google vs Oracle Google v oracle happened in the us. I explicitly qualified with ‘in europe’. That lawsuit would never have flown in the first place. Oracle's position was specifically that they held the copyright of the java stdlib APIs, which copyright was infringed upon by google. > code describing and documenting that API I'm not sure what you mean by that, can you clarify?
    - 40four 6y ago
      I don’t understand what you mean. You can’t use the API without, in this case, importing it in the python code. That means you bring in a whole copy of the code into your project, or the API wouldn’t work, right? So, my understanding is the author’s new files that use the GPL licensed library can individually be licensed MIT, but the work as a whole must the GPL.
- eek04_ 6y ago
  It's not clear that the aggregate work is allowed to be distributed under the GPL. My legal hypothesis (from having worked with BSD licensed code and noticed how much hassle having many licenses is) is that the extra requirement of repeating the MIT license could be challenged against the "extra restrictions" clause of the GPL. Think of the case of having 500 variant MIT/BSD3-clause/et licenses that CLAIM to mean the same thing and need full reproduction; the cost of having lawyers verify this is substantial, so it is an actual substantial restriction. GNU believes that the lax licenses (MIT, advertising clause free BSD) are "compatible with GPL" because the GPL requires attribution and the licenses can be considered a form of attribution. The actual status of this has, to the best of my knowledge, not been tested in court. Because this is a claim from the group that wants to add restrictions (the GPL side) and they generally want to be able to take BSD code and apply extra restrictions to it, it's not clear it's a large risk in practice.
yellowapple 6y ago
The Julia programming language does the exact same thing, last I checked (language itself is MIT-licensed, but the reliance on GPL-licensed math libraries makes the whole shebang GPL'd).
antman 6y ago
Can easily be changed to rapidfuzz, which is based on the older 2011 MIT fuzzywuzzy before it was forced to GPL after incorporating python-levenstein. Also a lot faster. https://github.com/maxbachmann/RapidFuzz https://github.com/maxbachmann/RapidFuzz
notretarded 6y ago
Diddums. Like anyone gives a fuck
emosenkis 6y ago
It's written in Python... It never gets compiled or linked.
- diarrhea 6y ago
  Yeah this has me confused as well, why is nobody talking about that here? In Python, it's literally just a line of text, an instruction to import something. If that thing doesn't exist, too bad. The user is responsible for supplying it, not the Python code.

moonchild 6y ago

The MIT license is ‘allowed’. The code in itself is MIT licensed. It's just that, when compiled and linked against fuzzywuzzy, the aggregate work that results must be GPLed.

maximente 6y ago
interesting: given that it may at any time hit that line of GPL'd code, your claim is that the rest of the code can be MIT licensed? i am not a lawyer but that sure seems like a borderline case at best.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  The author can licence their source code however they want. The GPL doesn’t relicense other code either, it’s that the GPL asks you to additionally follow its terms for the whole resulting compiled distribution
  - regularfry 6y ago
    This is incorrect, and it's precisely for this sort of situation that the LGPL exists. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL The problem for the author in this case is that a) writing their code against a GPL'd library constitutes creating a derivative work, and b) putting it on GitHub is distribution.
    - moonchild 6y ago
      The page you linked contradicts you: > the terms of the GPL apply to the entire combination. The software modules that link with the library may be under various GPL compatible licenses, but the work as a whole must be licensed under the GPL. The application is a ‘software module’ licensed under the MIT license (a ‘GPL compatible license’). When you link that application against the GPL'd library, the resultant ‘work as a whole’ must be provided under the terms of the GPL. (Since the MIT license allows relicensing, and the GPL does not contradict any of the terms of the MIT license, this is legal. If the MIT license did not allow relicensing, or if it contradicted some term of the GPL, the OP's application would still be legally licensed under the MIT license. It would just be illegal to link it against its GPL'd dependency.)
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - 40four 6y ago
        The key part is “but the work as whole must be licensed under the terms of the GPL.” Licenses are freaking confusing :) but I think folks are correct to point this out. My understanding is that all of the new files the author wrote can individuals be licensed MIT, but unfortunately the work as a whole should be GPL.
    - qcoh 6y ago
      From the FAQ, I don't get why the code has to be GPL licensed. It talks about libraries, "entire combinations", "software modules that link" and "work as a whole". On your second point: Can't they argue that they implement against an API, which could be provided by non-GPL software as well?
      - lvass 6y ago
        Compatibility with GPL in this case simply means a software distributed in a compatible license like MIT can be combined and distributed under GPL [0]. >On your second point: Can't they argue that they implement against an API, which could be provided by non-GPL software as well? I don't think that is reasonable. A GPL program is specifically named in requirements.txt and imported. It's essentially the same as dynamic linking, that is no more than naming a program and using it's API. If this argument was valid one could also argue it's possible to modify a dynamically linked binary's rpath (can be easily done with patchelf on GNU/linux) from a GPL library to a non-GPL one so dynamically linking a library would never require you to do abide to it's license, which is obviously untrue [1]. [0]http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean [1]http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic
  - coddle-hark 6y ago
    Almost. The author can license their contributions with a more permissive license if they want (e.g. individual files can be MIT licensed) but the software as a whole must be licensed under the GPL. I guess it boils down to whether the LICENSE file is meant to apply to the code in that repo or the software it produces when built. I would expect the latter, but I guess it's a bit ambiguous since we're having this discussion.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
lmm 6y ago
Coding against a library is usually understood to result in creating something that's a derivative work of that library.
- moonchild 6y ago
  The act of linking against a library produces a derivative work of that library. But since APIs are not copyrightable (in europe, at least), the act of using an API does not produce a derivative work, and thus code which uses an API is not bound to any particular license wrt it.
  - oezi 6y ago
    There is a pretty clear line between using an API and using the code behind it. The line between an API and code describing and documenting that API is quite fine. See Google vs Oracle.
    - moonchild 6y ago
      > See Google vs Oracle Google v oracle happened in the us. I explicitly qualified with ‘in europe’. That lawsuit would never have flown in the first place. Oracle's position was specifically that they held the copyright of the java stdlib APIs, which copyright was infringed upon by google. > code describing and documenting that API I'm not sure what you mean by that, can you clarify?
  - 40four 6y ago
    I don’t understand what you mean. You can’t use the API without, in this case, importing it in the python code. That means you bring in a whole copy of the code into your project, or the API wouldn’t work, right? So, my understanding is the author’s new files that use the GPL licensed library can individually be licensed MIT, but the work as a whole must the GPL.
eek04_ 6y ago
It's not clear that the aggregate work is allowed to be distributed under the GPL. My legal hypothesis (from having worked with BSD licensed code and noticed how much hassle having many licenses is) is that the extra requirement of repeating the MIT license could be challenged against the "extra restrictions" clause of the GPL. Think of the case of having 500 variant MIT/BSD3-clause/et licenses that CLAIM to mean the same thing and need full reproduction; the cost of having lawyers verify this is substantial, so it is an actual substantial restriction. GNU believes that the lax licenses (MIT, advertising clause free BSD) are "compatible with GPL" because the GPL requires attribution and the licenses can be considered a form of attribution. The actual status of this has, to the best of my knowledge, not been tested in court. Because this is a claim from the group that wants to add restrictions (the GPL side) and they generally want to be able to take BSD code and apply extra restrictions to it, it's not clear it's a large risk in practice.

yellowapple 6y ago

The Julia programming language does the exact same thing, last I checked (language itself is MIT-licensed, but the reliance on GPL-licensed math libraries makes the whole shebang GPL'd).

antman 6y ago

Can easily be changed to rapidfuzz, which is based on the older 2011 MIT fuzzywuzzy before it was forced to GPL after incorporating python-levenstein. Also a lot faster. https://github.com/maxbachmann/RapidFuzz https://github.com/maxbachmann/RapidFuzz

notretarded 6y ago

Diddums. Like anyone gives a fuck

emosenkis 6y ago

It's written in Python... It never gets compiled or linked.

diarrhea 6y ago
Yeah this has me confused as well, why is nobody talking about that here? In Python, it's literally just a line of text, an instruction to import something. If that thing doesn't exist, too bad. The user is responsible for supplying it, not the Python code.