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Ask HN: Could I use GPL licensed library in my MIT licensed project?

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Re: Ask HN: Could I use GPL licensed library in my MIT licensed project?

#11

Post by laken »

huxingyi wrote: post #8
laken wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, if I have to license my project on GPL because of CGAL, I would like the scripts wrote by user could license on whatever user like. But I am not sure if is possible. It'd have to be a "compatible" license to be allowed. Here are the compatible licenses: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLCompati...

Thanks, so that means the user have to open source their script also.

Kinda. If it's strictly for personal use and not shared, there's no obligation. If the user is distributing the script in any way, they would be obligated to "share" the changes to the world by having it be free software as well, yes.

Re: Ask HN: Could I use GPL licensed library in my MIT licensed project?

#13

Post by huxingyi »

belorn wrote: post #10

1. The other parts of the project can remain MIT or any other gpl compatible license. A condition for distributing the GPL library is that the whole project get covered by the GPL. A way to look at this is to think of parts only having to follow their own license, while the combined work has to follow all licenses that has clauses for combined works. In practice this mean that for example the GPL patent clause will c…

Thanks, to conclude from your detailed answer: I can still license the code other than CGAL to MIT, but license the whole project to GPL, and in the future if I removed CGAL, I can license the whole project back to MIT. And the plugin API is not related with CGAL at all, so I can let the user choose whatever the license.

Re: Ask HN: Could I use GPL licensed library in my MIT licensed project?

#14

Post by zzo38computer »

I think that you can, as long as the entire project as a whole, when distributed, is licensed by GPL, even if all of your own source files use MIT license. (Since it is compatible, it can be done.) If you later remove CGAL then you do not need GPL, I think, and can distribute the version without CGAL as MIT license. (However, I am not a copyright lawyer so I don't know, but I think this is correct.)

Re: Ask HN: Could I use GPL licensed library in my MIT licensed project?

#15

Post by huxingyi »

zzo38computer wrote: post #14

I think that you can, as long as the entire project as a whole, when distributed, is licensed by GPL, even if all of your own source files use MIT license. (Since it is compatible, it can be done.) If you later remove CGAL then you do not need GPL, I think, and can distribute the version without CGAL as MIT license. (However, I am not a copyright lawyer so I don't know, but I think this is correct.)

Thanks, that's good!
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