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I am writing a program for data analysis as a part of a bigger bioinformatics pipeline. Source code of the program is my own and I licensed it under Apache 2.0 license. However, I need to include two GPL 2.0 licensed files: source codes for methods in R language: this one and this one. These are two mathematical methods which I use in my tool.

Can I set Apache 2.0 for my whole project? It seems most reasonable for me that my bioinformatics method is licensed as I want it and, if that would be necessary, I can add a copy of GPL 2.0 into the directory alongside the two files I use.

Actually, the matter is a little more complicated: the optim.c file is very slightly modified by me to suit my computations. Do I have to take any more actions besides adding a statments in the source code: "this file has been modified by me, for the original version see..."?

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  • Did you read the GPL?
    – user253751
    Nov 17, 2020 at 14:24

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Can I set Apache 2.0 for my whole project?

No, you cannot.

The GPL license is a strong copyleft license that requires that the whole application must be made available under the terms of the GPL license. By choosing to copy those functions from the R language into your own project, you have pretty much slammed the door on yourself and you are effectively required to license your program under the GPL license, version 2 or 3.

Additionally, the Apache 2.0 and GPL 2.0 licenses are incompatible, which means that you are not allowed to distribute a project where parts of the code (possibly received via a library) are under the Apache 2.0 license and parts (again possibly in a library) are under the GPL 2.0 license. This means that if you also use a third-party library under the Apache 2.0 license, then you must use the GPLv3 license for your code.

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  • Alright, thank you, but how far does the GPL 2.0 propagation go? I wrote some C++ code which includes these two methods and does a specific task (could be treated as a whole). The C++ code is just one step in a computational pipeline where other steps are other scripts/tools under distinct licenses (a whole pipeline is biologically-oriented). Finally, the whole repository consist of many such pipelines.
    – maciek
    Nov 17, 2020 at 15:23
  • @maciek, it is generally accepted that the buck stops at the process boundary (if it executes in a different process, then it is not affected by the GPL), with some exceptions when intricate data structures are exchanged. If each step in your pipeline is a different executable, then they are likely to be considered independent under copyright law, with some caveat if complex data structures are exchanged between the steps.
    – Bart van Ingen Schenau
    Nov 17, 2020 at 15:32
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    @maciek "Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts?"
    – apsillers ♦
    Nov 17, 2020 at 15:35

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