Web3 LGPL license incompatible with Apache 2.0 license

Question

Web3 LGPL license incompatible with Apache 2.0 license

emschwartz opened this issue 6 years ago · comments

I'd love to use this module but Machinomy says it's licensed with the Apache-2.0 license and Web3 uses LGPL, which is incompatible with Apache. Is there another Ethereum library that could be used instead of Web3 that is compatible with Apache 2.0?

Sergey Ukustov · Answer 1 · Sat Jan 13 2018 07:54:33 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

1 It is highly improbable for authors of web3 to come after you or anyone because of that.
2 That bothers me too, though. Going to find a replacement for it. Probably, it would not be a lot of effort. Web3 is not the only one, and we use very little of it.

Evan Schwartz · Answer 2 · Sat Jan 13 2018 07:59:55 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I was looking into it more and it seems like LGPL might not cause problems if the library is just included (unmodified) as a dependency. I'm not a copyright expert though so I asked the IP guy at my company what he thinks. I'll let you know what he says

Sergey Ukustov · Answer 3 · Sat Jan 13 2018 08:26:36 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Thank you for getting so much trouble for this @emschwartz

Anyway, the idea to get rid of web3 as a direct dependency is too good to be left behind.