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chore: relicense to GPL-3.0-or-later and credit the ISC upstream

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Apache-2.0 was the wrong declaration for two independent reasons.

Enabling the `vst3` feature links vst3-sys, which is GPLv3-or-later by its
own authors' choice — they describe their port as a derivative of
Steinberg's SDK that "was not made in isolation", so the obligation holds
regardless of any question about Steinberg's own rights. Gating the
feature kept the default build clean, but plugins built from this template
are intended to ship VST3, so GPL is where they land anyway. Declaring it
up front is more honest than deferring the decision to every clone.

Separately, parts of src/lib.rs derive from Robbert van der Helm's
NIH-plug cookiecutter template and its `gain` example, both ISC. ISC's one
condition is that its copyright and permission notice travel with all
copies, and this repo carried neither — a compliance gap that existed
regardless of the GPL question. ISC is GPL-compatible, so the notice is
retained in a new NOTICE file rather than superseded.

The `vst3` feature stays opt-in, but its rationale changes: it is no
longer about licence compliance, only about not pulling a sizeable
dependency into a CLAP-only build. The Cargo.toml comment said otherwise
and would have misled the next reader.

Also corrects the README's claim that you must "accept Steinberg's VST3
SDK licence". No SDK source is vendored or redistributed here, so there is
nothing to accept at build time. The real constraint is vst3-sys's GPLv3,
plus Steinberg's separate trademark in "VST" — a different regime from
copyright that no source licence resolves.

Copyright in the Irene <irene@novoyuuparosk.org> commits is held by the
repository owner (an agent identity), so no third-party agreement was
needed for this relicense.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01WHt4DykxXaQnyaJfyS8KCn
This commit is contained in:
Mikkeli Matlock
2026-08-31 22:00:33 +09:00
parent 6dc67c0931
commit 9c0e31d783
8 changed files with 716 additions and 59 deletions
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README.md
+19 -12
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@@ -111,20 +111,27 @@ check-branding.sh # Asserts the plugin's identity strings agree everywhere (se
## License
Apache-2.0
**GPL-3.0-or-later.** See `LICENSE` for the terms and `NOTICE` for third-party attribution.
## VST3 Licensing Note
Plugins cloned from this template inherit GPL-3.0-or-later, because the template's own code
is under it. If you need a permissive plugin, this is the wrong starting point — write the
skeleton yourself against NIH-plug directly, which is ISC.
NIH-plug's VST3 bindings (`vst3-sys`) are GPLv3. Linking them makes the resulting binary
GPLv3 regardless of what `Cargo.toml` declares, so **VST3 is behind an opt-in `vst3` feature
and this template builds CLAP only by default.** That keeps the default build consistent with
the Apache-2.0 licence in `Cargo.toml`/`LICENSE`.
Parts of `src/lib.rs` derive from Robbert van der Helm's NIH-plug cookiecutter template and
`gain` example, both ISC. ISC is GPL-compatible, so that notice is retained in `NOTICE`
rather than superseded.
If you want to ship a VST3:
## VST3 and Steinberg
1. Build with `--features vst3`.
2. Relicense your plugin as GPLv3 (or obtain a commercial Steinberg licence) and update
`Cargo.toml`, `LICENSE`, and the SPDX headers in `src/`.
3. Accept Steinberg's VST3 SDK licence.
`vst3-sys`, which `nih_export_vst3!()` needs, is GPLv3-or-later — chosen by its own authors,
who describe their port as a derivative of Steinberg's SDK that "was not made in isolation."
That obligation is what makes a distributed VST3 build GPL-licensed, and it holds regardless
of any question about Steinberg's own rights. Being GPL-3.0-or-later already, this template
satisfies it.
CLAP has no such restriction.
No Steinberg SDK source is vendored or redistributed here, so there is nothing to accept at
build time. Separately from copyright, **"VST" is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies
GmbH**; describing a distributed product as a VST plugin is governed by their trademark terms.
If you intend to distribute commercially under that name, that is the part worth legal advice.
CLAP carries none of this — no GPL dependency and no trademark encumbrance.