Proposed update to the NVDA license to GPL-2 "or later"

[gerald-hartig]

Proposed update to the NVDA license

As part of our role to safeguard and help ensure the long-term health of the NVDA project, NV Access is proposing an important update to the license for the core NVDA codebase.

We intend to update the NVDA license from the current "GNU General Public License version 2" (GPLv2) to "GNU General Public License version 2 or later". The entirety of the change to the license will be the addition of those two words: “or later”.

Why update the NVDA license?

Using the "GPLv2 or later" model provides important benefits for NVDA's future that will help it continue to evolve and thrive for years to come.

An audit has shown that parts of the NVDA codebase and some essential libraries we integrate with are already licensed under GPLv3 or those only compatible with GPLv3. Formally updating NVDA's license to “GPLv2 or later" harmonises our licensing status and ensures clear compatibility with later versions of GPL, allowing us to use and integrate necessary components now and in the future. It is also likely to provide additional benefits in the future, particularly if the Free Software Foundation releases a new version that better addresses emerging legal or technological concerns, including:

• Reducing the legal and administrative burden of re-licensing in the future,
• Allowing the NVDA project to take advantage of later releases of GPL which may address ambiguities or gaps in current versions of GPL that emerge as technologies advance, and
• Helping to protect NVDA from becoming legally outdated, particularly as laws or commercial practices change over time.

Transitioning the NVDA licence

We understand license transitions require care. We want to assure you that NV Access is approaching this thoughtfully, aiming for the best outcome for NVDA, for our community of contributors and, ultimately, for our users. To help guide us, we've consulted extensively with experts, including the Free Software Foundation for their GPL expertise. Ultimately, we think that the proposed approach is best for everyone involved in the NVDA project moving forward.

Community consultation

However, we also appreciate that any consultation process will be incomplete without engagement with you, our contributors. Community contributions are at the heart of NVDA and the global movement it represents, and we value your input. We understand the change may raise questions or cause you concern. Accordingly, before we move forward with the proposed license update, we are opening a two month community consultation period starting today and ending on 28 September 2025.

During the consultation period, we want to hear your thoughts, questions or any specific concerns you might have about this planned update, regarding your past or future contributions to the NVDA core code. We would also like to hear from you even if you have no concerns, for example if you fully support the change. To assist, we have included (below) a set of responses to questions and concerns we anticipate may arise for our community.

Ideally, we would like to hear from the original contributors themselves, and so if the contribution is not yours we strongly encourage you to forward this message on to the original contributor so that they can contact us directly through https://www.nvaccess.org/contact-us/. If your comment or concern relates to a specific contribution or piece of code, then please identify with as much accuracy as possible the exact location of the contributions to which your concern relates. Please feel free to respond to in this thread if you have any questions about the community consultation process.

We will carefully consider all feedback received during this consultation period.

Next steps

Following the close of the consultation period, NV Access will review all input and make a determination regarding next steps, which we expect to communicate to contributors on or around 13 October 2025.

If the feedback we receive indicates substantive concerns and we consider further consultation is required, we propose to engage further with our community to ensure we properly understand your concerns. If you would like to be part of any further consultation, please provide your contact details to NV Access at https://www.nvaccess.org/contact-us/.

Thank you again for being such a crucial part of the NVDA project. We look forward to hearing from you and working together to ensure NVDA's continued success.

Anticipated Concerns

As discussed above, we have taken some time to anticipate issues that contributors may be concerned about and we provide our responses below:

Loss of control over future licensing terms. Contributors are being asked to pre-approve licensing terms that don’t exist yet.

• The Free Software Foundation has a strong track record of maintaining licenses that reflect the core principles of free and open source software. The “or later” amendment is something that the Free Software Foundation recommends to provide flexibility and compatibility with later licensing models.

Philosophical objections to GPLv3 or beyond.

• While some contributors may prefer GPLv2 on principle, the “or later” amendment does not mandate immediate adoption of GPLv3 – it simply allows compatibility when needed. NV Access retains flexibility and will continue to assess future versions on their merits.

Impact on compatibility with other projects or licensing strategies.

• The “or later” amendment can improve compatibility with a broader range of GPL-licensed projects that already use “GPLv2 or later” or GPLv3, making collaboration and code reuse easier.

Concerns over licensing proliferation or ambiguity.

• The update will simplify long-term governance. Instead of requiring repeated contributor approval for each new license version, the project can remain aligned with an evolving environment under a clear and consistent framework.

[josephsl]

Hi,

While there are issues with GPL 3, I think the "2 and later" clause would work. A possible alternative is re-licensing NVDA to something more permissive. One point to consider is impact on add-ons (my add-ons are licensed under GPL (although not stated, my add-ons can be licensed under any version). For now, to make it formal:

As an NVDA contributor, I (Joseph Lee) do give NV Access permission to re-license my contributions from GNU General Public License version 2 to GNU General Public License version 2 or later.

Thanks, and let's wait for more community feedback.

[JessicaTegner]

Hi.

I very much agree, that projects generally need to keep up with licensing, and I personally do like the change here.

My concern would be, kind of off of a part of what @josephsl said, which is that if you want to change the license, you would need the permission of every contributor (unless every contributor, at the time of contribution, explicitly signed a CLA, having a clause saying that NVAccess was allowed to modify the license) which I do not think is the case as far as I'm awear.
Curious about how NVAccess plans to handle this

[gerald-hartig]

Hi @JessicaTegner, we were discussing this same question over in the developer mailing list. https://groups.io/g/nvda-devel/topic/114407455
I've reproduced the answer below, in part:

The expert advice that we've received is that we do not need 100% of people who have ever contributed code to NVDA since the start of the project to provide their positive assent. As you mentioned, some people are no longer with us. I'm heavily summarising and paraphrasing here, but the community must be consulted and we must address any concerns raised by community members about their personal contributions.

[LeonarddeR]

I'd be also happy with this change and would also be fine with relicensing my work under GPL V3 if that ever becomes necessary. Re what @josephsl says about an alternative for a more permissive license, I have several reasons Not to support that alternative. But let's not clutter this discussion with these, since it is a bit out of scope.😉