[systemd-devel] Systemd license vs. libcryptsetup license

[Lennart Poettering]

On Tue, 06.06.17 16:33, Krzysztof Jackiewicz (k.jackiewicz at samsung.com) wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I noticed that when systemd is configured with libcryptsetup option enabled
> it will link to libcryptsetup which is distributed under GPL 2.0. It seems
> like a license conflict to me. Can anyone explain it?

systemd is licensed under LGPL2.1+ in its entirety (well, there are
some specific exceptions for very specific files for historic reasons
or because they originate elsewhere) so that we can liberally move
things around within our own tree. During runtime we might link to
more restrictively licensed libraries wich will effectively downgrade
the relevant bits of our code to that more restrictive license too
(which LGPL permits). Or in other words: GPL and LGPL are of course
compatible, and that's what we mix in some of our processes and is
hence fine. Of course, if we end up mixing two libraries in the same
process with conflicting licenses we need to be careful, but GPL+LGPL
are not that.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat