License question

[HariSekhon]

Hi,

Quick question - does the GNU GPL2 mean any scripts on github for example that utilize this library also have to be published under the GPL2?

I tend to release my stuff under a custom BSD derived license which makes them free to use, copy and modify and don't want to go back to GPL licensing my works so I'm inclined to not use a GPL library if it takes away my own choice of license on my own works.

Is it possible to license this under the LGPL so that it only applies to this library itself?

Thanks

Hari

[Granitosaurus]

@HariSekhon If your program that is using GPL code is published it must be pusblished under GPL license in it's entirity. However if you are using a license that is compatible with GPL you can mix and match them.

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 (not the other license).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility#GPL_compatibility

So AFAIK you can use GPL2 dicttoxml package in your modified BSD program, the whole program would need to be licensed under GPL but the pieces that are not dicttoxml in other words - your pieces, can be licensed under your BSD license.

[claweyenuk]

If the license is an issue, there is also a library called xmltodict (https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict) with an MIT license that can convert dicts to xml (see the unparse function).

[javadev]

The alternative library with MIT license. Regular updates, 100% code coverage.

https://github.com/javadev/underscore-java/releases

[ed-randall-blk]

If the license is an issue, there is also a library called xmltodict (https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict) with an MIT license that can convert dicts to xml (see the unparse function).

@claweyenuk Sadly xmltodict doesn't provide the same conversion features as dicttoxml, there are no equivalents for the custom_root, ids, attr_type, item_func, cdata args unfortunately.

The alternative library with MIT license. Regular updates, 100% code coverage.

https://github.com/javadev/underscore-java/releases

@javadev - not sure that would be so useful - that's Java; this is Python.

@quandyfactory - could you be persuaded to change the licence to something less "viral" (as GPL 2.0 has been described), or perhaps provide a choice of licences - eg. one of these maybe?

• Apache License versions 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0
• BSD License (without advertising clause)
• Common Development and Distribution License
• Common Public Attribution License
• GNU LGPL version 2.1
• MIT License
• CNRI Python License
• Python Software Foundation License