Files
ConformalLabpp/code/deps/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md
Tarik Moussa fe1702ad35 ci+licenses: promote 4 trivial gates to required CI + THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md
Two reviewer-facing additions consolidated into one commit:

(1) New `quality-gates` job in .gitea/workflows/cpp-tests.yml
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    Runs in parallel with test-cgal after test-fast.  Installs
    `codespell` + `shellcheck` (apt) into the existing ci-cpp container,
    then executes four scripts strictly (exit 1 on any finding):
      * license-headers.sh   — 66/66 files carry SPDX MIT
      * cgal-conventions.py  — 0 violations across 6 CGAL public headers
      * codespell.sh         — 0 typos across docs + source + scripts
      * shellcheck.sh        — 0 findings across 16 shell scripts

    Each ran at 0 findings locally before promotion.  Total wall-time
    on the eulernest runner: ~30 s.

(2) New code/deps/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md
    ──────────────────────────────────────
    Enumerates every vendored dep under code/deps/, plus auto-fetched
    GoogleTest, plus system-required Boost, with:
      * upstream project + version + SPDX identifier
      * compatibility note for MIT distribution
      * downstream-packager license matrix (header-only consumer vs
        CLI binary) clarifying the LGPL §3 vs §4 distinction

    Required for any future Linux-distribution packaging and for the
    CGAL submission's compliance check.

    Also fixes a `code/.gitignore` gap: the `deps/*` wildcard was
    catching the new file; added `!deps/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md` to
    the exclusion list so it's actually tracked.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-24 21:40:40 +02:00

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 (see doc/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.