are agpl3 and gpl3 compatible and can (a)gpl3 use mit / bsd / apache code but mit / bsd / apache cant use (a)gpl3 code? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 9 months ago by jackpot@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes (one-way, gpl3->agpl3), yes, and yes.

More details here

[-] jackpot@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago

and how hard is it to convert agpl code to gpl?

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 6 points 9 months ago

Generally speaking, you can't. You can license the whole thing AGPL which is fine; if for some crazy reason you don't want to do that you pretty much have to rewrite anything AGPL in order to license the whole thing GPL3. Why would you do that though?

[-] thesmokingman@programming.dev 12 points 9 months ago

This is incorrect. You can relicense your code to whatever you want if you and all the license holders agree to do so. You can’t unlicense the old code, though, and if there are more license holders than just you, it’s probably more complicated than it’s worth.

have to rewrite anything AGPL

I’m skeptical this would actually hold up in court because if you wrote the original code and then wrote the new code, it would not be clean room design and would most likely be breaking the terms of the original license.

[-] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

That link was a fascinating read. TIL. Thanks!

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 9 months ago

That's accurate that if you wrote the code, you can license or relicense it however you want.

I thought the person was asking about combining together other people's code -- yes, if you wrote it you can do whatever you like.

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this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024

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