Linked into a closed-source app or firmware and distributed — GPL-3.0
- 1 · You publish under GPL-3.0GNU General Public License v3.0 only
- 2 · The situationLinked into a closed-source app or firmware and distributedSomeone else does this
- 3 · ResultBlocked by license
Relevant clause
GPL-3.0 §5(c) — Official text
Review status: Not yet reviewed by a lawyer. Report an error
Same scenario, other licenses
- Allowed MIT
- Allowed BSD-3
- Allowed Apache-2.0
- Allowed MPL-2.0
- With conditions LGPL-3.0
- Blocked by license AGPL-3.0
- Allowed MulanPSL-2.0
- Blocked by license SSPL-1.0
- With conditions BSL-1.1
- Allowed ELv2
- Allowed BSD-2
- Allowed ISC
- Allowed Unlicense
- Allowed Zlib
- Allowed Boost-1.0
- Allowed MIT-0
- Allowed PostgreSQL
- Allowed Unicode-3.0
- Allowed Apache-2.0+LLVM
- Blocked by license GPL-2.0
- Allowed GPL-2.0+CPE
- With conditions LGPL-2.1
- Allowed EPL-2.0
- Allowed EPL-1.0
- Allowed CDDL-1.0
- Allowed APSL-2.0
- Allowed Artistic-2.0
- Allowed Perl-5
- Allowed LPPL-1.3c
- With conditions FSL-1.1
- Allowed RSALv2
- Allowed Confluent CL
- Allowed UPL-1.0
Other scenarios for GPL-3.0
- AllowedA1 A cloud vendor sells your project as a managed service
- Blocked by licenseA2 Someone forks it and distributes a closed-source competitor
- AllowedA3 Embedded in a closed-source SaaS backend (not distributed)
- Not addressedA5 Someone promotes a modified version with your name or trademark
- With conditionsA6 Someone sells unmodified copies
- Blocked by licenseB1 A user sues you for patent infringement and keeps using the code
- Blocked by licenseB2 A contributor asserts patents on their contributed code
- Not addressedB3 A cross-border dispute: governing law and venue
- Blocked by licenseC1 You later relicense or sell commercial licenses (contributors signed no CLA)
- AllowedC2 Your code is merged into a GPL-3.0 project
- AllowedC3 You use a GPL-3.0 dependency and still ship under this license
- AllowedC4 The project is abandoned and someone forks it to continue
- Blocked by licenseC5 You want to block only big companies or competitors
- Not addressedC6 Key code was written by an employee and the employer objects
- Blocked by licenseD1 Someone removes copyright or attribution notices
- Blocked by licenseD2 Someone modifies files without marking the changes
- AllowedD3 Internal modification, no distribution and no external service
- AllowedD4 Used for military, surveillance or other uses you object to
- Not addressedD5 Used by a sanctioned entity
- Not addressedD6 Your code is used to train an AI model