NVIDIA / NVIDIA/cuda-python

License clarification about the project

Open
#2,621 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@rparolin is already working on this.

Since Aug 14, 2026.

triage
Dominant language
Cython
Stars
3.4k
Forks
329
Avg merge
1d 23h
Merged PRs (30d)
116

Description

Hi folks, I would like to get some clarification on the license state of this project following the discussion over at Fedora ^1. The question is what is the license of the built wheel and does it depend on the build environment? The setup is that cuda-toolkit is only imported at build time and later the package is dependent on dynamically from rpmfusion.

Some points:

  • The python metadata is APACHE-2.0 (or at least after https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/commit/18f9bb5087726aa0528abbbcd807671fa4d84fe5) [^2]
  • Does the license correctly reflect the compiled wheel state, e.g. if we build the same sdist [^3] would it still be APACHE-2.0?
  • Are there other legal considerations that we should consider in how the copr repo is setup? Would some different legal notices or such be needed when pulling in the dependency?
  • Are there some special things to consider for other packages that link to cuda-toolkit, either as:
    • Depending directly on cuda-python without build dependencies on cuda-toolkit
    • Other packages that do use cuda-toolkit at build time

This would also clarify how some other projects are consuming cuda-toolkit and if something should be done on copr with those as well. So would appreciate the broader picture here as well.

[^2]: Realized that I technically picked up the wrong licensed versions in https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lecris/cuda-example/
[^3]: Assuming some compile flags are enforced, the toolkit is not statically linked, etc.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.