Clarification on MIT License Usage for YOLOv7 Code

[hanshin-ps]

Dear Authors,

Hello, and thank you for your work on this project.

I was previously considering using YOLOv7 for a commercial project but discovered that the official implementation is under the GPLv3 license, which makes it difficult to adopt in a commercial setting. While searching for alternatives, I came across this repository, which claims to officially provide YOLOv7 under the MIT license.

I’m curious how this is possible. Was the codebase entirely reimplemented from scratch by referring only to the YOLOv7 paper, without using a single line of the original GPL-licensed code? Or is there another reason that allows this version to be distributed under the MIT license?

Thank you in advance for your clarification.

[Roios]

Following this! Any clarification?

[ulvido]

I want to learn too. How MIT license possible?

[faridht]

This repo (which includes yolov7) is a remake of the original implementation. Although both repos construct the NN based on the definitions in the .yaml files, the way codes and definitions are written is rather different.

I think there is no license violation here. At least that's how I see it as an observer.

[justin-rwazi]

@faridht
since WongKinYiu/YOLO.git is under GPL-3.0 license
How could this repo is under MIT?
I'm confused

[tloki]

This code has no similarities to old YoloV7 except paper implementation that is already public knowledge. At this point multiple companies have done independant assesment of this and found this indeed being the case. The code is so different it's not even compatible in any way - i.e. it's even impossible to convert models from one to other.

[duylddev]

The readme says install yolov9 from WongKinYiu repo which is under GPL license
That’s my concerns

[faridht]

@justin-rwazi @duylddev (I guess you are both the same person?)

Let me clarify the source of confusion. There are TWO DIFFERENT repositories:

https://github.com/WongKinYiu/yolov9 → GPL License

https://github.com/WongKinYiu/YOLO → MIT license (Note the uppercase and no "v9")

We are now in https://github.com/MultimediaTechLab/YOLO. Previously, this repository used to be https://github.com/WongKinYiu/YOLO. As such, you see it mentioned in the readme and it is indeed correct (will work too!).

In fact, if you click on https://github.com/WongKinYiu/YOLO, the browser will automatically redirect you to here. Seems like an ownership change occurred.