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MIT licenses might not be allowed

Open wagenrace opened this issue 2 years ago • 2 comments

Hey, I see this project depends on Pylint but that package is released under GPL license meaning packages using it (like this one) need to have a GPL license but MIT is not

Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL

wagenrace avatar Jan 08 '23 20:01 wagenrace

From your link:

The software modules that link with the library may be under various GPL compatible licenses, but the work as a whole must be licensed under the GPL.

The MIT license is a GPL compatible license, see GNU GPL compatible licenses (most people routinely call it the MIT license, GNU call it the "Expat" license, it's the same thing. See Wikipedia.

tommorris avatar Jan 25 '23 17:01 tommorris

If I understand the GNU GPL-compatible license correctly it is the other way around. You can use MIT-licensed software within a GPL-licensed project, but not the other way around, see Wikipedia

Code licensed under several other licenses can be combined with a program under the GPL without conflict, as long as the combination of restrictions on the work as a whole does not put any additional restrictions beyond what GPL allows

The idea is that a more restrictive license (like GPL) can use part of a less restrictive license (like MIT) but not the other way around; otherwise, you can remove software restrictions by writing a tin wrapper with a different license.

wagenrace avatar Jan 26 '23 14:01 wagenrace