search

Fazecast / jSerialComm

Platform-independent serial port access for Java
GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
1.34k stars 287 forks source link

Why is the GPL used in COPYING? #268

Closed kimmerin closed 4 years ago

kimmerin commented 4 years ago

Hi,

I'm a bit confused what license this project is using. Clicking on "View License" points to https://github.com/Fazecast/jSerialComm/blob/master/COPYING which is GPLv3 while #53 shows me that it should be only LGPLv3 and ApacheV2. GPL "beats" LGPL and Apache.

hedgecrw commented 4 years ago

This project is dual licensed under LGPLv3 and ApacheV2.

LGPL works by modifying the GPL, such that program licensed under LGPL is a program whose license consists of both the GPL and the LGPL. GNU itself specifies that for a program to be licensed under LGPL, it must include two files named COPYING and COPYING.LESSER, which as a whole represent the LGPL license (source).

Apache, on the other hand, specifies that to license a program under their license, the portions of the source code covered by the license (each source file) should simpl include the Apache licensing information in that source code's header text.

Hope that helps!