Relicense the birdnetlib project with a more permissive open source software license

[joeweiss]

Related to #72, I'm proposing to relicense this repo and project as Apache 2.0. This would encourage the inclusion and usage of birdnetlib in other projects without imposing the copyleft conditions of the GPL-3.0 license.

Note: This would not apply to the models that are included in this repo, as they are included for redistribution under BirdNET-Analyzer and BirdNET-Lite's CC-NC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

The plan is to change the license in the 0.9.0 release in August. I'll leave this issue open for discussion until then.

[joeweiss]

Users indeed have a responsibility to abide by the licenses of a library's dependencies as they apply to their usage. I don't understand the confusion. Installing a library with pip will install dependencies (eg watchdog, pydub, matplotlib, requests, tensorflow, numpy), many of which are not licensed under the same license as the library.

My understanding is that as a user of the birdnetlib Python distribution, I would not be able to use its functionality at all for commercial purposes

If you're using models (which were licensed to you as CC-NC-BY-SA 4.0), then yes, of course, you have a responsibility to abide by the license of the model you're using.

I have no idea if it is possible to acquire the models, or a compatible model, under a different license as I have no need for a non-commercial commercial license, but birdnetlib (as GPLv3 or Apache 2.0) would be able to be used in a commercial setting if a commercially-compatible licensed model existed (now or in the future).

[Bengt]

Users indeed have a responsibility to abide by the licenses of a library's dependencies as they apply to their usage. I don't understand the confusion. Installing a library with pip will install dependencies (eg watchdog, pydub, matplotlib, requests, tensorflow, numpy), many of which are not licensed under the same license as the library.

Yes, when the package manager is run by (and therefore on behalf of) the user of birdnetlib, they of course they need to consider the (one) license of every dependency when building their application. birdnetlib itself but has two licenses, both of which need to be abided by. ... That would at least be unusual.

[joeweiss]

My comment above was in response to a now-deleted comment questioning the inclusion of the BirdNET models under their own license.

I took the time to answer the question in good-faith, and I'm leaving my answer intact as I think it adds value to the discussion.

[Bengt]

My comment above was in response to a now-deleted comment questioning the inclusion of the BirdNET models under their own license.

Yes, I noticed. Sorry about the confusion, deleting my earlier comment has had. On second thought, I found it to not be helpful, and I was assuming that you would not see it at all.

[joeweiss]

This is not the place for a discussion of BirdNET-Analyzer’s choice of license, or your personal interpretation of the meaning of its license.

Moving forward, please limit the discussion to the issue at hand, which is the potential relicensing of this project. This is a small project, run by a single dev on a volunteer basis. Please stay on topic and if you have an issue or comment regarding the wider BirdNET project, I suggest you take it somewhere else.

[joeweiss]

From reviewing commits and pull requests, it looks like @jurriaan and @LimitlessGreen have contributions in the current main branch. Thanks for your past contributions.

I've reached out to you both over email, but I'm also pinging you here. Please let me know if this license change (GPLv3 to Apache 2) is acceptable to you.

[jurriaan]

I'm fine with that! 👍

[LimitlessGreen]

From reviewing commits and pull requests, it looks like @jurriaan and @LimitlessGreen have contributions in the current main branch. Thanks for your past contributions.

I've reached out to you both over email, but I'm also pinging you here. Please let me know if this license change (GPLv3 to Apache 2) is acceptable to you.

Hey,
sorry, that somehow slipped past me 🙈
Sure, I'm completely fine with that! 👍