Re: Embedding Git Command Line

On 2024-05-16 at 12:04:35, Kevin Gale wrote:

Hey,

First of all, I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. However, having said that, I think the common understanding is that it's fine to call out to a GPL binary from your proprietary program without violating the license, unless the output is a derivative work. Usually that's not the case; it would only usually be so if the output included part of the GPL software's source code, such as a parser generator. The FSF has a FAQ[0] that covers this to some extent, which calls the approach of calling out to the program a form of "communicat[ing] at arms length".

As a major copyright holder in Git, I don't see a problem from my perspective with a proprietary piece of software calling out to Git as a separate binary. Git is designed to provide scripting interfaces so it's easy to use from a variety of software. You would of course need to provide the source to the version of Git you distribute and the copyright and license information as well, in compliance with the license. Note also that if you are distributing Git, you cannot link it against GPL-incompatible software (e.g., OpenSSL) unless that GPL-incompatible software is distributed independently as part of the operating system.

I also want to be clear that this is my understanding as a layperson and my interpretation as a contributor to and copyright holder in Git, but it isn't binding on anyone else here. If you want a legal opinion, you need to consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction who has experience in FLOSS copyright law. Nobody here can provide you such an opinion.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem