One difference is that mods are meant to be linked against the proprietary implementation. In the discussion of GPL linking, this is really murky: https://en.w

One difference is that mods are meant to be linked against the proprietary implementation. In the discussion of GPL linking, this is really murky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Lin... But I don't think either of those are really similar. Android is emulating the Java API, without Oracle code being involved. Programs that link against GPL libraries are intended to make runtime calls to copyrighted code. And game mods modify the copyrighted program's runtime behavior, having the program make calls to the modding code (in place of its own). I can't think of an analogue of the last situation.