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Unfortunately, Tizen has a proprietary SDK, as discussed here, which mandates that:

You may not use any component part of the Tizen SDK in any way independent from the Tizen SDK. You may not load or install any of the Tizen SDK onto mobile phones or any other devices, except a personal computer.

If I use the SDK to develop my app, can I still license the app under GPL v3?

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Yes, you can still use the GPL license for your project, even if you develop it against the Tizen SDK, under the condition that you do not copy code that belongs to Tizen into your own project, but only reference it with #include or import statements.

However, to make your project usable for others, you must also give them the extra permission to link their derived works against the Tizen SDK. Normally, the GPL only allows you to link with other open-source code, but as original author of your project you are allowed to grant additional permissions on top of the permissions granted by the GPL and that mechanism is often used to grant permission to use a particular non-free third-party library.

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  • You say "to make your project usable for others, you must also give them the extra permission to link their derived works against the Tizen SDK". How can I do that? I can't guarantee forks will have permission to use the SDK, as "Samsung may terminate this Agreement (i) at any time for any or no reason upon 30 days prior written notice to you"
    – Tin Man
    Jul 7, 2018 at 12:23
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    @TinMan: In your documentation, preferably close to where you mention that our software is under the GPL, you add a phrase along the lines of "as an additional permission, this software may be used together with the Tizen SDK". The fact that the user also needs a separate license from Samsung for the SDK itself is a completely different matter. Jul 8, 2018 at 6:07
  • If the relevant pieces of SDK can be considered "common infrastructure" (like e.g. the libc of a propietary Unix system), you are allowed to do that. I don't know enough of SDK to say if this is true.
    – vonbrand
    Jul 9, 2018 at 14:49
  • @vonbrand: Non-free common infrastructure is already allowed by the GPL license itself, so no need to give a specific additional permission for that. Jul 9, 2018 at 15:01
  • @BartvanIngenSchenau, that is exactly what I'm not clear about: Is SDK "common infrastructure" or not.
    – vonbrand
    Jul 9, 2018 at 15:04

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