The license-overview file written in commit 7b097fb fell through a
gap in code/.gitignore (the 'deps/*' wildcard catches everything not
explicitly allowed). Added '!deps/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md' to the
exclusion list so the file is actually tracked.
Found by curl-HEADing every link on https://tmoussa.codeberg.page/ConformalLabpp/
— 25/26 links returned 200; only THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md was 404
because the file was not in the tree of the preview branch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
6.7 KiB
Third-party licenses
This directory contains source code from external projects that conformallab++ vendors at fixed versions for build reproducibility. Each project is governed by its own license; this file enumerates them so downstream packagers, distributors, and reviewers can audit compatibility without crawling each upstream tarball.
Why vendored at all? conformallab++ is header-only and ships nothing it does not author except the optional CLI binary (
-DWITH_CGAL=ON). Vendoring guarantees that the CGAL / Eigen / Boost API surface every contributor sees is identical, removing "works on my machine because I have CGAL 6.0 not 5.6" failure modes during early review. Downstream packagers replacing the vendored trees with system installs is supported and is the recommended path for distribution-level packaging (seedoc/architecture/dependencies.md).
conformallab++ itself
| Item | License | Notes |
|---|---|---|
code/include/**, code/src/**, code/tests/**, scripts/**, doc/** |
MIT (see LICENSE at repo root) |
Every C++ source file carries SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT; CI gate scripts/quality/license-headers.sh enforces this. |
Vendored dependencies
The table below lists each tree under code/deps/, its upstream
license, the SPDX identifier, and any compatibility note relevant to
shipping conformallab++ as MIT.
| Directory | Upstream project | Version | License (SPDX) | Compatibility with MIT distribution | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CGAL-6.1.1/ |
CGAL | 6.1.1 | LGPL-3.0-or-later (most headers) + GPL-3.0-or-later (a small subset — see CGAL's per-header \cgal_license{...} macro) |
Header-only consumption is compatible; we ONLY include LGPL'd parts (Surface_mesh, Polygon_mesh_processing, BGL adapters, kernels). |
conformallab++ does not include any of the GPL-only CGAL packages (e.g. Triangulation_3 parts, certain mesh-3 internals). The \cgal_license macro is checked at compile time and would fail the build if a GPL-only header were transitively pulled in. Commercial licenses are available from GeometryFactory for users who can't accept (L)GPL. |
eigen-3.4.0/ |
Eigen | 3.4.0 | MPL-2.0 for almost everything, LGPL-2.1-or-later for a few legacy files (e.g. Eigen/src/Core/util/NonMPL2.h gates these) |
MPL-2.0 is permissive enough for MIT; the LGPL files are NOT pulled in by <Eigen/Dense> / <Eigen/Sparse> (the only Eigen headers conformallab++ includes). |
We define no preprocessor flag that activates the non-MPL2 code paths. The default Eigen build is pure MPL-2.0. |
libigl-2.6.0/ |
libigl | 2.6.0 | MPL-2.0 | Compatible with MIT distribution. | Only the viewer subsystem under code/src/viewer/ uses libigl, and only when -DWITH_VIEWER=ON. The library headers and the CGAL wrapper headers do not depend on libigl. |
libigl-glad/ |
Glad (the generated OpenGL loader libigl ships) | bundled with libigl 2.6.0 | MIT (the generator's output is licensed permissively; the loader code itself is in the public domain via the original Khronos headers) | Compatible. | Built only with -DWITH_VIEWER=ON. |
glfw-3.4/ |
GLFW | 3.4 | zlib/libpng | Permissive; compatible with MIT. | Built only with -DWITH_VIEWER=ON. See code/deps/glfw-3.4/LICENSE.md for the verbatim text. |
single_includes/json.hpp |
nlohmann/json | 3.x (header-only single-include) | MIT | Identical to ours. | The file itself carries the SPDX header MIT; see code/deps/single_includes/json.hpp first lines. |
tarballs/ |
(build-artefact cache) | — | n/a | n/a | This directory just caches the downloaded source tarballs to avoid re-downloading on every clean build. The tarballs are bit-for-bit identical to the upstream releases. |
Auto-fetched (not vendored)
These are pulled by CMake FetchContent at configure time. They are
not redistributed by conformallab++; the user's CMake fetches them
during build. We list them anyway for transparency.
| Item | Upstream | Version | License | Fetched by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoogleTest | https://github.com/google/googletest | v1.14.0 | BSD-3-Clause | code/CMakeLists.txt (test target only) |
System dependencies (required at build time, not redistributed)
| Item | Where it lives | License | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boost (header-only subset) | system package (apt install libboost-dev, etc.) |
Boost Software License 1.0 | Required by CGAL's BGL adapters (only when WITH_CGAL=ON or WITH_CGAL_TESTS=ON). |
| C++17 standard library | the compiler's libstdc++ / libc++ / msvc | LGPL-3.0 with exception / Apache 2.0 with LLVM exception / MSVC redist | normal compiler runtime. |
Summary for downstream packagers
If you are packaging conformallab++ for a distribution, the practical license matrix is:
binary you ship (CLI app, -DWITH_CGAL=ON)
├── conformallab++ (MIT)
├── CGAL (LGPL-3.0-or-later — comply with §4 LGPL: source
│ of CGAL must be obtainable or shipped)
├── Eigen (MPL-2.0 — comply with §3 MPL: any modifications
│ must be released under MPL-2.0)
├── libigl (MPL-2.0 — same as Eigen)
├── GLFW (zlib/libpng — acknowledgement in product docs)
├── Glad (MIT — preserve copyright notice)
└── Boost (headers) (BSL-1.0 — preserve copyright notice)
header-only consumer (just #include our headers)
├── conformallab++ (MIT)
├── Eigen (MPL-2.0 transitively)
├── CGAL (LGPL-3.0-or-later transitively)
└── Boost (headers) (BSL-1.0 transitively, only if you include any
CGAL/* header)
The header-only consumer typically doesn't trigger LGPL §4 obligations because LGPL §3 explicitly permits use of LGPL'd material as "templates, inline functions, macros" by an "Application" without imposing copyleft on the Application — which is exactly the header-only consumption pattern.
If you have specific compliance questions, the upstream license texts are authoritative; this file is a navigational aid.
How this file is maintained
- Updated whenever a
code/deps/tree is added, removed, or version-bumped. - Cross-referenced by
doc/architecture/dependencies.md. - There is no CI gate that auto-verifies the SPDX entries against
upstream — that would require either an SBOM tool (e.g.
syft,tern) or a manual audit. The current policy is "review on dep-tree change", logged in the commit message of the bump.