Relicense under Apache-2.0 - #33
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Replace the GNU General Public License v3.0 with the Apache License 2.0,
copyright Vert Inc. Apache-2.0 carries an explicit patent grant and is the
conventional choice for developer tooling.
The eBPF objects keep their SEC("license") = "GPL" declaration: the kernel
requires a GPL-compatible declaration to permit the GPL-only helpers these
programs call, and changing it would cause the verifier to reject them at load.
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Replaces GPL-3.0 with the Apache License 2.0, copyright Vert Inc.
Apache-2.0 carries an explicit patent grant and patent-retaliation clause, which GPL-3.0 also has but MIT lacks, and it is the conventional license for developer tooling — corporate legal review clears it without the case-by-case scrutiny GPL attracts. Since these scripts are how people first encounter yeet, copyleft was friction in the wrong place.
The eBPF objects intentionally keep
SEC("license") = "GPL". That string is a kernel ABI requirement, not documentation: the verifier rejects programs calling GPL-only helpers unless they declare a GPL-compatible license. Changing it would break every script at load time. Shipping Apache-2.0 userspace alongside GPL-declared BPF objects is standard practice.No
.bpf.c, toolchain header, or Dockerfile was modified.