I am writing an open source project under the GNU GPL 2+ license, using the tools in the project that are distributed under the MIT license. This is, in fact, the framework itself, in which the project is developed and the individual modules with software code.

Is it possible and how to combine these two licenses?

In my projects I keep the LICENSE folder, which contains the original text of the GNU GPL 2+ license and its text in Russian. When you first start a project, the first thing I do is always display a window saying that the application is distributed under a license, the text of which can be viewed and "blah blah" ... In the libraries of my project it is also indicated that they are distributed under a license GNU GPL 2+.

Will it be enough to indicate in the same window, at the first launch of the project, that the program was written using such-and-such tools with the MIT license? Or should I supply each module that I use in the project with the header of the MIT license text?

I would like to clarify these points.

  • “License mit” is an incorrect term, since mit used different licenses. At least two of them are mentioned on gnu.org: expat and x11 . - aleksandr barakin

1 answer 1

What is a MIT license?

The so-called " MIT license " is the generic name of the two X11 and Expat licenses. Their only difference is the presence of one paragraph in X11, which prohibits advertising the X Consortium without its permission, and it is respectively absent in Expact.

What does this license permit?

In principle, everything, provided that the text of the license will be included in all distributed copies or significant parts of the software.

This is a copyright notice.

Can I combine the GNU GPL and MIT licenses?

Yes. MIT is compatible with the GNU GPL. A list of compatible licenses with GNU.

How to combine?

Simply ensure that the tools you use and the libraries under the MIT license contain the text of the license itself. Any additional actions in the form of displaying them in the welcome window of your project are not required. However, you can mention the libraries used in the LICENSE file in the root directory of the project.

For example, in the GIMP-2.8 project, besides the main COPYING file with the GNU GPL v3 license, there is an LICENSE file in which an explanation is given that some project libraries (namely libgimp) have another license different from GNU GPL v3 (naturally compatible with it):

  • Licensed under GIMP application core
    the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE - see the 'COPYING' file in this
    directory for details.
  • ...
  • GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE 'libgimp' and the other libraries of GIMP libraries are licensed underneath - see the directory for details.

Disclaimer of liability

This answer is not written by a lawyer and is for informational purposes only. For a more comprehensive consultation, it is preferable to contact a specialist.

PS As a free alternative, you can explore the sources of other well-known projects under the GNU GPL v2 +, which use libraries under MIT licenses and see how they approached this issue.