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(L)GPL code in MIT licensed product. Is it legal?
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:27 am
by nexos
Hello,
In my bootloader, the ELF structures I obtained have been taken from glibc. My project is licensed under the MIT license. Since glibc is LGPL licensed, is it within the license for me to integrate this code into my project?
Thanks,
nexos
Re: GPL code in MIT licensed product. Is it legal?
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:52 am
by Korona
AFAIU (IANAL) that this is legal but results in a GPL-licensed product.
That being said, ELF structs are unlikely to be considered IP of glibc.
Re: (L)GPL code in MIT licensed product. Is it legal?
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 10:07 am
by nexos
OK, makes sense. In the open source world, the GPL family seems to be more of a stumbling block then help. That is why I switched to the MIT license.
Re: (L)GPL code in MIT licensed product. Is it legal?
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 10:21 am
by PeterX
nexos wrote:OK, makes sense. In the open source world, the GPL family seems to be more of a stumbling block then help. That is why I switched to the MIT license.
Well, this is a matter of opinion. some people like the other extreme (PD/CC0) and some like that their work can't be used in more unfree software, so they use GPL/AGPL. Some like more in the middle between this extremes (like MIT/Expat License and others).
BTW Bruce Perens recommends to reduce the licenses to three:
- For permissive terms: Apache 2.0 License
- For intermediate terms: LGPL
- For copyleft terms: AGPL
https://licenseuse.org/
No need to mention that licenses are a very hotly debated thing.
Greetings
Peter