Licensing FAQ

This page answers questions with regard to Dynalink licensing.

How is Dynalink licensed?

Dynalink is Open Source software that is dually licensed under both Apache 2.0 and 3-clause BSD license. Anybody wishing to use the library can do so under either one of these two licenses at their own discretion.

When you choose one of these two licenses, only the chosen one applies to you, the other one does not.

Which license is preferred?

If you can, you should use Dynalink under the Apache 2.0 license, as it contains some patent termination and indemnification provisions that should give any licensee extra peace of mind compared to the BSD license which lacks them.

If Apache is preferred, why is there BSD license as well?

In short, because I wanted to allow it to be incorporated into OpenJDK. OpenJDK is GPLv2 licensed, and Apache 2.0 license is not compatible with GPLv2 (specifically because of Apache license's patent provisions). The rule is therefore:

• If you need to integrate Dynalink into other work licensed under GPLv2, choose the BSD license.
• In most other cases (including integrating into GPLv3 licensed work, as Apache 2.0 is compatible with GPLv3), choose the Apache license.

This advice does not replace the need for you to do the research and understand whether either of these two licenses is compatible with the license for your work.