Platformio's LICENSE

I’m really just wondering, as i’m no expert and these license things boggle me.

How is Platformio released under the Apache license when it’s designed and built from scratch to specifically make heavy use of GPL’d software into its application framework?

Sure, there’s no GPL’d code added into Atom’s binaries and Platformio is built upon python, and all GPL’d software exists as addons/external modules, e.g. compilers ran via python call-once pipelines, etc. But this does not apply to its debugging capability, which according to GNU’s F.A.Q. states:

“It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined program.”

The PlatformIO is licensed under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, so you can use it in both commercial and personal projects with confidence.

PlatformIO is pure Python project without any dependencies to GPL projects. Our development platforms depend on GNU toolchains (binaries, not source code). We do not include GPL source code in our projects.

Thanks Ivan for the info!

Was really just wondering since i myself have come accross this issue before regarding licenses and was wondering how you guys managed, thanks for clearing that out!

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