GPLv3 License issue

Hi, we’re using this library in one of our projects (thanks for sharing!) and while I was doing some research into licenses I found the following in your code:

geolib/src/getRhumbLineBearing.ts

Line 13 in 6ba1b60

    
            * Function heavily based on Doug Vanderweide's great PHP version (licensed under GPL 3.0)

It is my understanding that ‘taking’ GPLv3 source is ‘infectious’ and spreads to those that re-use the source. Perhaps the key here is ‘based on’, but IANAL and so I’m wondering if you have more insight into this?

Can you specify / elaborate on what exactly the issue is?

Can you specify / elaborate on what exactly the issue is?

Yeah, sorry about that, I accidentally hit the wrong key combo and submitted too early 🙈

I think you’re talking about the getRhumbLineBearing function?

IANAL but as I understand, this shouldn’t be a licence violation as the original code is written in PHP and this library merely uses the same algorithm implementation but is rewritten in TypeScript/JavaScript.

I am pretty sure that porting, rather than a cleanroom implementation, still leaves the GPL license of the original code in place. E.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3256967/what-are-the-copyright-and-licensing-issues-of-porting-code

@alloy The link you posted seems broken

Oh, weird, it still works for me. I got there from the first link of this comment https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/58340

The formula is pretty surely public domain. That's common knowledge and pure math. The function itself contains one condition and is otherwise completely based on a mathematical formula. I'm not a lawyer either but I am 99% sure I could just remove the link to the source and that would be totally fine and legal.

Put simple, it's not very much different to a function add(a, b) { return a + b; } which could not be patented or put under a particular license in any form.

Gotcha, that makes sense to me 👍

If this has been resolved, I would suggest closing this issue. Seeing an open issue with the title "license issue" is bound to turn away some people considering using this library

Good point. I will change the comment to clarify that there's not really a license issue.