License

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Discussion

The GnuCash source code is licensed under a set of various different licenses. The file LICENSE in the tarball should clarify which parts are available with which license. This might be getting important in the future as some of our libraries might be using the GPLv3, which according to some people is incompatible with GPLv2.

Mailing list discussion:

LICENSE file

Proposed update

Here's what cstim would prefer as a LICENSE file:

This software is available under the GNU General Public License, Version 2 (see below for the license text).

In addition to this, many contributions are available under the GNU GPL, version 2, "or (at your option) any later version". Specifically, all contributions by the following developers are licensed this way: cstim, ...

In addition to this, many contributions are available with the exception for linking against OpenSSL, also known as the "OpenSSL exception" (see below for the text). Specifically, all contributions by the following developers are licensed with the OpenSSL exception: cstim, ...

In addition to this, many contributions are available under GNU GPL, version 3. All contributions by the following developers are available under GPLv3: cstim, ...

In addition to this, some source files are in the public domain. Please see the individual source files for this information.

OpenSSL exception:

As a special exception, permission is granted to link the binary module resultant from this code with the OpenSSL project's "OpenSSL" library (or modified versions of it that use the same license as the "OpenSSL" library), and distribute the linked executable. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the code used other than "OpenSSL". If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version of this file.

The text of the GNU GPL, version 2, is below.

(...)

Current version

Here's what is currently written in the LICENSE file:

This software is provided under a mutually-compatible set of licenses.

The software, for most intents and purposes, is licensed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2.

Almost all of the source files are licensed under the GNU GPL, Version 2, "or (at your option) any later version". However, some of the source files are licensed under Version 2 of the GNU GPL specifically.

Some of the source files have an exception for linking against OpenSSL, as per the following language:

As a special exception, permission is granted to link the binary module resultant from this code with the OpenSSL project's "OpenSSL" library (or modified versions of it that use the same license as the "OpenSSL" library), and distribute the linked executable. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the code used other than "OpenSSL". If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version of this file.

Some of the source files are in the public domain.

Please see the individual source files for their specific licensing.

The text of the GNU GPL, version 2, is below.

(...)

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