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rust-lang / git2-rs

libgit2 bindings for Rust
https://docs.rs/git2
Apache License 2.0
1.64k stars 380 forks source link

License compatibility with libgit2 ? #1019

Closed jacquetc closed 4 months ago

jacquetc commented 4 months ago

Hello,

I'm not a lawyer, so is your dual licensing "Apache License" & "MIT" compatible with the modified GPLv2 of your core library libgit2 ?

libgit2 is "GPLv2 with a Linking Exception that lets you use it with open or proprietary software." (dixit the official libgit2 website). See also the file itself here.

If it's compatible, wouldn't be good to precise this compatibility in the Readme with the license of libgit2 ?

Licenses are a mess to understand, so I hope someone in the community can clarify this blurry point ?

joshtriplett commented 4 months ago

GPLv2 and MIT are in general compatible already. But beyond that, libgit2's exception says:

the authors give you unlimited permission to link the compiled version of this library into combinations with other programs, and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming from the use of this file.

That exception means users of git2-rs will generally have no license obligations with respect to libgit2.

jacquetc commented 4 months ago

Thank you for your answer. I was leaning toward the same ideas, so your answer means that I didn't misread.

Have a good day !