[Qgis-psc] Licence compatibility

[Vincent Picavet (ml)]

Hello,

On 12/04/2018 16:45, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am examining a plugin[0], just submitted, who has a MIT licence. I'm
> not sure we can allow import of GPL classes into a MIT code (the reverse
> is obviously possible).
> Does someone have a clear idea about this?
> Thanks.
> 
> [0]http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/GeodynGem/

MIT is compatible with GPL version 2 at least, and version 3 also (
should be verified though).

As soon as it is distributed and executed, the full package becomes GPL.

>From Wikipedia page, and also the following page :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Compatibility_and_multi-licensing

To minimize license proliferation and license incompatibilities in the
FOSS ecosystem, some organizations (the Free Software Foundation, for
instance) and individuals (David A. Wheeler), argue that compatibility
with the widely used GPL is an important feature of software
licenses.[28][self-published source?] Many of the most common
free-software licenses, especially the permissive licenses, such as the
original MIT/X license, BSD licenses (in the three-clause and two-clause
forms, though not the original four-clause form), MPL 2.0, and LGPL, are
GPL-compatible. That is, their code can be combined with a program under
the GPL without conflict, and the new combination would have the GPL
applied to the whole (but the other license would not so apply).

Vincent