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2026

GNU General Public License v2.0 or later

The or-later form of GNU General Public License, Version 2. A variant models the same legal text with one thing changed, so it is a license of its own with an address of its own and it is listed like any other.

Also known as GNU GPL Version 2 or later, GNU GPL v2 or later, GNU GPLv2+, GNU General Public License Version 2 or later, GPL Version 2 or later, GPL-2.0+.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later

Permissions

  • Charge distribution fee from the text The text says: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee." Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Commercial use from the text Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text The text says: "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change." Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text The text says: "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change." Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text The text says: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee." Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

  • Change license from the text Not permitted: Change license. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.

License-wide duties

  • Share alike from the text The text says: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License." Adaptations have to be licensed under the same license or one the license names as compatible.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

  • Promote by default rule (adopted) Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

    This license says nothing about Promote, and the graph applies this reading in all jurisdictions it covers: it is not permitted unless the license permits it.

    A licence that says nothing about endorsement is read as not allowing it: the licence gives the licensee no right to use the licensor's name or marks in a way that states or implies that the licensor endorses the licensee or its product, while stating truthfully that a work is based on or uses the licensed work is a different act that this rule does not decide. A copyright licence grants rights in the work, and the right to use a name or a trademark is a separate right under trademark law and the protection of names, which a silent copyright licence does not pass on. Combining a licence that is silent about endorsement with one that permits it shows a conflict marked as coming from this rule.

    Basis Trademark and name rights are separate from copyright: Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 article 9 lets the proprietor of an EU trade mark prevent all third parties not having his consent from using the sign in the course of trade, and Directive (EU) 2015/2436 article 10, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a), section 12 BGB and section 43 ABGB protect marks and names in the same way. The library's evidence is Creative Commons 4.0 section 2(b)(2): Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License. A copyright licence that is silent grants no right to use the licensor's name or marks to suggest endorsement (Worldwide)

Further terms

These are the things the license says about itself beyond the acts it permits, forbids and requires: when it ends, how long there is to put a breach right, which law governs it, and so on. A term that comes from the DALICC vocabulary links to its definition.

Or later version option
Yes
Terminates on breach
Yes

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

Limitation of liability

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Accepting warranty or additional liability

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

Info

Target asset types
Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Legal code
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
Free Software Foundation
SPDX identifier
GPL-2.0-or-later on the SPDX license list
Version
2.0
DALICC identifier
GPL-2.0-or-later

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later",
  "license-title": "GNU General Public License v2.0 or later",
  "spdx-id": "GPL-2.0-or-later",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-2.0-or-later" rel="license">GNU General Public License v2.0 or later</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge DALICC badge for GNU General Public License v2.0 or later

Markdown 

[![License: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-2.0-or-later/badge.svg" alt="License: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later"></a>

Review

Written from the license text by
Giray Havur
Written on
2026-09-22
Second review
not yet done
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
12 recorded, 9 applied to the record, 1 proposed

The record models the "or later" form of GPL version 2. Its legal text is the same document that GPL-2.0-only models, so the deontic model is that record statement for statement and nothing about the grant or the conditions changes. What the identifier adds is the option section 9 gives the licensee: to follow this version or any later version the Free Software Foundation publishes. Read the record as GPL-2.0-only with that option turned on.

12 findings

  • info Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    File name, record id, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are all GPL-2.0-or-later. The deprecated short form GPL-2.0+ that package managers still report is carried as a dct:alternative so that a search for it reaches this record.

  • major Rubric 10 dalicc:variantOf applied

    The record copies GPL-2.0-only statement for statement. Five things differ: the identifier, dct:title, dct:alternative, dalicc:orLaterVersionOption (true here, false there) and the pair dalicc:variantKind "version-option" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:GPL-2.0-only. Nothing else was touched, because nothing else differs between the two SPDX identifiers.

  • major Rubric 7 dalicc:orLaterVersionOption applied

    Section 9 is the clause the flag stands for: "If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation." cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual, because the text limits neither the territory nor the term.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Section 1 grants copying and distribution of verbatim copies of the source, section 2 grants modification and the distribution of the modified work, and section 1 adds: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy." The ten permissions of the base record follow from those sentences: odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks, dalicc:ModifiedWorks, odrl:display, odrl:present, cc:CommercialUse and dalicc:chargeDistributionFee.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    Section 2(b) requires a work that contains the Program "to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License", so the share-alike condition reaches the whole work and cc:ShareAlike is a duty of the licence itself rather than of one act. Attribution, notice and source-code duties hang on distribute, modify and derive; dalicc:modificationNotice hangs on modify and derive, from section 2(a): "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."

  • minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited, which is the whole-work copyleft shape of the library and follows section 2(b). dalicc:promote is prohibited as well, although GPL version 2 has no trademark or endorsement clause; that statement is the library-wide default, it comes from the base record, and the review of GPL-2.0-only already records it as not supported by the text.

  • info Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer applied

    The warranty disclaimer of section 11 and the limitation of liability of section 12 are kept as two literals, each starting at the sentence its own property names, and the fee and warranty sentence of section 1 is dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance. All three are byte for byte the literals of GPL-2.0-only, because the text is the same document.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

    The asset collection carries dcmitype:Software, as in the base record. Section 0 applies the licence to "any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License".

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check of app.services.composer, run with licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, reports 0 conflicts for this record.

  • gap Rubric 8 dalicc:additionalClauses none

    Section 8 lets the copyright holder "add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded". No term expresses a territorial limitation that a licensor may add to an individual work; cc:jurisdiction says where the licence is valid, which is a different statement. Proposed term: dalicc:geographicalDistributionLimitation. The base record does not quote the clause either, and quoting it here alone would break the rule that this record equals its base, so it stays a proposal for the pair.

  • minor Rubric 5 record proposed

    Two clauses could be modelled with terms that already exist, in both records of the pair at once. Section 4: "Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." Section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." GPL-1.0-only, whose text says the same, carries the three statements below. Adding them here alone would break the rule that this record equals GPL-2.0-only, so they are proposed for both records together.

  • minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    dalicc:promote was prohibited and no sentence of this text supports it. The statement was the library's reading of a legal default, that a copyright licence which says nothing about endorsement grants no right to it, and it sat in 519 of 581 records as a house convention. That reading is now an adopted dalicc:DefaultRule of the core dependency graph, which supplies it to every licence that is silent about the action, so a compatibility check reaches the same answer and the record states only what the text states. Removed on 2026-09-23; see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The changes since version 1 left endorsement to the default rule of the core dependency graph, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

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    7 changes

    • removed prohibition dalicc:promote

      Manual edit The endorsement prohibition rested on no sentence of the text; the default rule for endorsement now supplies it.

    • changed duty cc:ShareAlike

      was duty cc:ShareAlike

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

    • changed permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee

      was permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

    • changed permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      was permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."

    • changed permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      was permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."

    • changed permission odrl:reproduce

      was permission odrl:reproduce

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    Created from the license text on 2026-09-22 (GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)).

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Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Variants

3 records in the library model this same legal text with one thing changed: the option of a later version, an exception that lifts one condition, or a rider that adds one. Each of them is a license of its own and is listed like any other. See variant in the glossary.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.