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Comment by novafunc | Hacker News Reader

Can you please elaborate on what you mean?

Ubuntu does not aim to be a permissively-licensed system. It can include copyleft (e.g. GPL) and permissive (e.g. MIT) without issue.

Permissively-licensed systems like FreeBSD and GrapheneOS cannot include GPL code if they want to remain permissive.

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GrapheneOS does include GPLv2 code both via AOSP and our own but not GPLv3. We want GrapheneOS to have no additional restrictions beyond AOSP. AOSP uses GPLv2 but not GPLv3.

We do need to be careful with GPLv2 due to license incompatibilities. For example, GPLv2-only licensing such as the Linux kernel is incompatible with Apache 2 and GPLv3. GPLv3 is compatible with Apache 2 so GPLv2-or-later can be compatible but only by using it as GPLv3 with the extra restrictions too.

It seems like you have more freedom than you think you do. See this comment <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594824> Packaging software shouldn't change the license of GOS as such. If you haven't had already, maybe the free software foundation could provide you with assurance?

I guess it will make your life much easier if you wouldn't have to restrict yourself that much.

No, we're not talking about packaging software in our app repository (App Store) but rather software being included in GrapheneOS. If any GPLv3 software is included in GrapheneOS then that places more restrictions on how it can be used as a whole.

> GrapheneOS cannot include GPL code if they want to remain permissive

It's hard to take this seriously when the entire kernel is GPL.

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