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CANopenNode / CANopenEditor

CANopen Object Dictionary Editor
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Question: are the generated C files subject to (L)GPL? #65

Closed lohralfen closed 1 year ago

lohralfen commented 1 year ago

It seems to depend per software stack whether or not the generated files are also subject to the same (L)GPL license. Since I can't find any example output files in this repository, could you confirm or deny whether the output files are licensed, and if yes, by which license?

trojanobelix commented 1 year ago

The CANopenEditor (and the files it generates) is licensed under the GPL 3.0 licence as stated on the Github project page. The last change to the licence type was in 2017 in the former main project. The maintainer Robincornelius stopped contributing, so this is now the main project and was started as a fork of robincornelius/libedssharp.

As far as I know, Janez (the maintainer of the CANopenNode stack) also changed the licence type in the past. The project page says that the stack is licensed now under the Apache License, version 2.

lohralfen commented 1 year ago

Thanks for your response. Can you direct me to where it specifically says the generated files are also licensed under GPL 3.0? I could not find that part.

I indeed saw the Apache License, version 2. But as long as the editor itself is licensed under GPL, I guess that "trumps" this remark on the stack project page.

trojanobelix commented 1 year ago

This follows IMHO from the GPL itself.

The Corresponding Source need not include anything that users can regenerate automatically from other parts of the Corresponding Source.

The XDD ist your own work and is sufficient to generate the source code. The generated code is not covered by the GPL

lohralfen commented 1 year ago

This rendered me confused based on: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhatCaseIsOutputGPL However I guess in this case the author has decided that it does apply, so that answers my question. Thanks.

trojanobelix commented 1 year ago

GPL FAQ stated: The output of a program is not, in general, covered by the copyright on the code of the program. So the license of the code of the program does not apply to the output, whether you pipe it into a file, make a screenshot, screencast, or video.

and that fits perfect to: The XDD ist your own work and is sufficient to generate the source code. The generated code is not covered by the GPL

Okay, glad I could help.