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Question regarding licensing: [1] states that a source file can be "one of the compatible GPL variants and alternatively under a permissive license like BSD, MI
by jokabrink 4y ago
Question regarding licensing: [1] states that a source file can be "one of the compatible GPL variants and alternatively under a permissive license like BSD, MIT etc."
Looking at a rust source file inside the dev tree 'Rust-for-Linux' [2], it is licensed as "Apache-2.0 OR MIT". However, Apache-2.0 appears to be incompatible with GPL-2.0 [3]. How come that the licensing in such a way is possible with the Linux licensing rules?
[1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/license-rules.rst https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/...
[2] https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/blob/rust/rust/alloc/alloc.rs https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/blob/rust/rust/alloc...
[3] https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1357/can-i-link-a-apache-2-0-library-into-software-under-gplv2 https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1357/can-i-li...
Edit: Another quote from [1]: "[...], though individual source files can have a different license which is required to be compatible with the GPL-2.0:"
- viraptor 4y agoWith alternatives like that, you choose what applies, so if it's licensed as "MIT or literally-anything-else", it's still valid. Now why they chose to add Apache2, that is interesting. A guess: if contributions to the project also need to be mit-or-asl2, then maybe that would force the patent grant clause to apply for contributions? (even if it doesn't change anything for the users)
- aldonius 4y agoThe core Rust project (and consequently much of the ecosystem) is dual-licensed MIT or Apache-2.0, so it's not at all surprising to see that continue here.
- jokabrink 4y agoAh, I see, thanks. Somehow I hadn't looked at GPL-2.0 compatibility of the MIT license, which would have answered the question.