Questions tagged [gpl]
The GNU's General Public License, a commonly-used free software license. The GPL has various versions, v1-v3, so use this tag only for questions talking about overarching issues of the licenses or shared characteristics. For example, for a question about a unique section on version 3, use the [gpl-3] tag.
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Where can I find a license file for Ubuntu linux OS/Distributive? [duplicate]
There is no any license agreement in the installation process (as I checked for ubuntu-22.04.3-live-server-amd64.iso) nor license link on their website (include it's terms section) nor license file in ...
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Include Tool under GPLv3 licence as an additional Unity executable - Is this approach viable?
Am developing an Unity game where I require the functionality of this tool (which is written in Unity itself) at runtime: https://boundingboxsoftware.com/materialize/
It essentially processes images/...
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What does GPLv2 say about adding or removing source files?
GPLv2 requires, when redistributing modified version of the source code, to notify in the source files the date of change.
But what about removing source files? Is there any requirements of notifying ...
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Maintaining a parallel fork of a project that contains the original authors' company name
I have been working on my own changes to a complicated academic/scientific project whose name contains their organization (university) name that I am not part of, for example, if their organization ...
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GNU licence re-distribute abandoned project
I use a project that are licensed under
GNU General Public License version 2 or later
The code owner has abandoned the project and announced they leave it public as FOSS on github.
The company with ...
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If I make my website open source, does it include page content?
Do open source licenses such as GPL or MPL include page content such as text and such within the open source file, or just code, therefore layout?
Because if I go open source for my website can ...
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Is it possible to apply the GPL license to “built static libraries”?
Is it possible to keep the source code under an exclusive license, but apply the GPL license only to the built binary code, so that software that uses this binary code is subject to a GPL-compatible ...
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File format convertor for open source and proprietary file formats
I want to build an application that will enable a user to convert files from any one of three formats, into any of those three formats. In order words, there are three formats:
aaa, bbb and ccc
My ...
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Docker image with proprietary software and GPL library
As a company we have a proprietary software, coded in Java and distributed to our clients in .war packages that they run on their servers. To run, the software requires a program licensed under GPLv2 ...
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Can support of GPL software legally be done in such a way as to practically force you to abandon your GPL rights?
I was looking to purchase a license to software from the author. The software is GPL licensed (I assume because its a Wordpress plugin - and thus compelled to be GPL).
My interest in purchasing the ...
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Need Help Choosing a FOSS License for a Swift Package With Specific Requirements [duplicate]
Stack Overflow community!
I'm working on a Swift package and am having some trouble deciding which FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) license to use. I have specific requirements and am hoping ...
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Is user data part of an AGPL-derived-application?
Assuming we have a kubernetes application stack consisting of - among other things - MongoDB and Metabase. Metabase is APGLv3 licensed. We share the combined code as e.g. helm charts publicly on ...
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Why it is not possible to create a proprietary fork of GPL?-or-later software?
Let's assume there is a project under GPL2-or-later license. My understanding
is that anyone can take the project and make a fork with GPL2-only additions.
They could also take the project and make a ...
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Which Free-software license should I use in a Unity project located on a public Github repository?
I have a Unity project in a public repository (https://github.com/AdrianXuizGarcia/VirManDC), and I want to make it open source.
Im not sure which license should I use... All code and assets are made ...
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Can a GPL binary, that has no source code released, be reverse engineered, and that source be released? [duplicate]
can a GPL binary, that have no source code released, be reverse engineered and that source be released?
Some devs get a project in GPL, implement new things, release the binary but do not release the ...
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BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License and GPL Version 3 Compatibility
The BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License is known to be compatible with the GPL version 2. Since software that is released under the GPL version 2 only is not compatible with the GPL version 3, is the BSD-...
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Gimp and Inkscape on Android: licensing (GPL?)
I have found the following apps on the Google Play store. They are traditional Linux apps for drawing, that are running on Android (with some modification to the source code, I believe).
I would like ...
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GPL classpath exception as a basis for a simple proprietary license
I'm about to release a GPL licensed application framework and am planning on dual-licensing with a proprietary license. I'm wondering if the GPL classpath exception could be used as a basis for a ...
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Is there a software license that says anyone can do what they want with it except sell it or sell modified versions of it? [duplicate]
From what I can tell GPL lets folks modify your code and sell it and MIT lets them do whatever they want.
I plan on charging for my application. I am okay if someone wants to tweak it and use it for ...
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GPL compliance when license was not provided? (You unknowingly derived from code that was in breach of GPL)
Let's say Person A creates some code and licenses it under a GPL license. If someone (we'll call them Person B) then creates code which derives from Person A's code, but fails to obey the terms of the ...
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Is GNU's stance on what constitutes a 'single combined program' universally accepted?
GNU's website has a FAQ section where they say what constitutes and what doesn't constitute a 'single combined program'. My current understanding is that, if you use GPL code in a 'single combined ...
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Stack Exchange's CC-BY-SA and Patents
All contributions to the Stack Exchange Websites are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC-BY-SA), either version 2.5, 3.0, or 4.0 depending on the post date. This ...
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Fix backtick formatting in GNU GPLv3 license
The formatting issues described in this question on Stack Overflow (backtick ` at the start and a single quote ' at the end of the quotes) do also appear in the GNU GPLv3 license text (plain text &...
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Inter-compatibility of licenses
I would like to sell a Java desktop application of mine to more schools after having success with one single school. Seems like it wouldn't have been a problem, if I haven't mixed different licenses ...
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Publish open source
I use iText in my application
Is the application considered open source if I put the AGPL3 license when publishing the application on Google Play only?, or I must to do something else to considered ...
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AGPL3 and commercial use
I am looking at opensource licenses and I feel a bit overwhelmed about AGPLv3.
Let's imagine that I would like to create a facebook clone. I would also like to self host my own object storage (for ...
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How exactly is the GPL "general public"?
According to general public definitions, "general public" means "everyone". Yet the GPL seems to be entirely concerned with the freedom to make changes to software.
few software ...
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Do public foundation registered members constitute "organization" in the GPL distribution context?
From this question:
Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company
“distribution”?
No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for
itself. As a consequence, a ...
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Does GPL apply to optional and disabled code and no linking
I am using mostly LGPL or compatible libraries, but there's also a few that are available under GPL & compatible only.
I understand that GPL requirements apply to software distribution, in other ...
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Understanding PDFtk and GPL license
I work for a local county that will generate our local tax statements for free via a web service consumable by a public URL. For example, the web service would generate and stream the PDF using the ...
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Can someone other than the original author contribute downstream changes to an upstream repo?
Let's say we have repo A with a copyleft license like GPL. Let's say someone forks repo A to repo B and creates some modifications. Let's say the owner of B had no intention of contributing their ...
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AGPLv3 - Does indirect use over intermediary servers constitute "distribution"?
Let's say I'm building an app consisting of a frontend, backend and database.
The database software is AGPLv3.0 licensed and running on the database server.
The backend is proprietary, running on the ...
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How does commercial GPL software work in practice? [duplicate]
A small independent company develops an innovative product, licensed under GPL. A sizable investment of many months of R&D to bring the initial release, and a non-trivial cost to maintain and ...
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"Modding" GPL Software and using in a multi-part commercial application
Here's my dilemna:
I own proprietary software that generates HTML.
I want my end users to use a GPL v3 open source licensed software that renders HTML in a special GUI. But I want to white label/...
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How do I make a partially-free open-core product that permits custom plugins?
I have a native application I would like to release under a copyleft license. The application embeds a Lua interpreter and exposes an application-specific interface to Lua code. I would like to ...
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Apache License 2.0 compatibility with source code licensed under GPL 2 with classpath exception
I am working on an open-source project that is governed by the Apache License 2.0, and I want to make use of Java source code from OpenJDK 11, which is governed by the GPL 2 license with classpath ...
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GPL and Linking Exceptions
I'm trying to decide on a license for some code I'm going to be open-sourcing shortly, and having a hard time choosing among the major licenses (as less common licenses are things people are not as ...
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GPL - retaliation instead of restriction? [duplicate]
This question is inspired by the ongoing discussion about Red Hat restricting access to source code repositories.
We all know that you cannot restrict your customer's GPL rights by additional clauses ...
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What's the meaning (qualifications) of "machine" in GPL's "machine-readable source code"?
I'm trying to understand what is (not) a "machine" in GPL's "machine-readable source code".
GPL requires you to share (a) the preferred-form-of-the-work-for-making-changes-in-it, ...
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Change copyright author after forking GPL v2 code? [duplicate]
Say I fork the source code here, modify the code, and finally distribute the source code and the derived work.
Can I change the copyright notice at the top from
# Copyright 1999-2022 Gentoo Authors
# ...
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Is aggregation of GPL and non-GPL software possible?
A colleague of mine is working with Matlab on a simulation of some sort. In order to enhance the simulation she needs a way of adding some additional data that can be easily generated using a GPL C++ ...
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Open source program - commercial compiler?
If a program is licensed under GPL, I have the right to receive the source code along with the binary.
But what if only commercial (non-free) compilers exist to compile the code?
This would make it ...
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What's to prevent a user from reverse engineering a GPL program?
I saw this question Does requiring users to accept the GPL before using GPL-licensed software violate the GPL?
That states that the GPL license does not apply any restrictions on the user. If that is ...
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Does requiring users to accept the GPL before using GPL-licensed software violate the GPL?
As far as I know, you are not required to agree to the GPL to make personal use of GPL-licensed software. You are only required to agree to the GPL to redistribute the software. The GPL prohibits ...
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C++ GPL Standard header
I'm new to C/C++.
When I import , the license text looks as follows:
// Copyright (C) 1997-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
//
// This file is part of the GNU ISO C++ Library. This library is ...
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Commercial aggregate with open container and closed GUI
Is it possible to sell open-source R scripts in Linux containers run with Podman on Windows and control the containers with closed-source graphical user interface (GUI)? The straightforward and openly ...
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Can I configure open source tools (GPL, AGPL) for my client?
I run a small consulting firm and would like to configure some GPLv3 and AGPL software for a client (think HR, Accounting, ERP software). We mainly want to avoid Oracle or other ERP providers to save ...
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Licensing for CC BY 4.0 content digitization
I have found a translation of an ancient book, and the translation is now out of copyright and its scanned contents are being hosted publicly under a Creative Common 4.0 license. The scans are images, ...
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Importing GPLv3'd code: Which copyright notice to add to my own code?
Let's say I import some header files (or Python modules) which are under GPLv3 into a source file that I would like to publish as Open Source (OS), and also signify that I have copyright on that ...
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How do I require commercial users of the output of my software to give attribution?
I've got some code which produces some output files, this project is open source under GPLv3. I've also got some people reaching out to me and asking if they can use the output files (they don't care ...
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