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I have the following question. One commercial license scanning tool notified me that following artifact:

https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.jboss.xnio/xnio-api/3.3.8.Final

has a public domain, cc0-1.0, and Apache 2.0 licencing. (Public domain, according to the support of that tool, means that software was released under generic public domain statement.)

When I go to the repository, I find that it is declared as CC0-1.0 and Public, but actually source code license as well as pom file declare only Apache 2.0

Can anybody explain, where the CC0 and Public come from in this case?

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Assuming that the link to home page is correct and that the source code link from the home page is correct,
I'd think that the CC0-1.0 and Public notes are just wrongly tagged. An unimportant human factor mistake, maybe.

The grave bit is that actually the software might not be under ALv2, because it seems it might be GPL'ed software later disguised as ALv2.

It is widely accepted that *GPL* source code can not be demoted to a permissive license such as ALv2 (unless every copyright holder has been reached out and has explicitly agreed to). Read this as a most immediate example.

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  • Thank you for the answer. This commit is from 2012. Version that we use is more recent. Commit says relicense under ALv2. Do you mean they cannot actually change the license terms in a new version? – Vladimir M Sep 16 at 10:07
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    It's widely accepted that *GPL* source code can not be demoted to a permissive license such as ALv2. Read this as an example – 13042 Sep 16 at 10:14
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    @john true, unless it's done by the copyright holder(s). – MadHatter supports Monica♦ Sep 16 at 16:15
  • Yes, I’m sorry. If every copyright holder agreeds, software can be relicensed. So, send some contribution and disappear, problem solved. – 13042 Sep 16 at 16:41

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