Love Termux- just need a quick license confirmation on terminal-emulator module

[random-programming-guy]

Hey everyone 👋

First of all — I love your project. There’s honestly no me without Termux. It was my first gateway into real mobile development, and I’ve learned a lot thanks to the work you’ve all done here 🙏

Recently, I started experimenting with the terminal-emulator component in your repo. I created a custom UI around it and used it to power a much bigger developer tools app I’ve been working on. I’m not using any of the other parts of Termux — just the backend from terminal-emulator, and building everything else myself.

I saw that terminal-emulator is listed under the Exceptions section of your LICENSE.md, referencing jackpal's Android Terminal Emulator, which is Apache 2.0 licensed. I just want to be 100% sure:

• Is terminal-emulator still fully Apache 2.0, with no GPLv3 code mixed in?
• Is it safe to reuse them in a proprietary project, with proper attribution and license compliance?

Also — small suggestion — maybe consider clarifying this a bit more in the LICENSE.md for future folks like me who want to do the right thing. 😊

Tagging @agnostic-apollo in case you're the right person to confirm this — really appreciate any guidance 🙏

Thanks in advance for your time, and for making such an inspiring project.

[agnostic-apollo]

Thanks. Yes, terminal-view and terminal-emulator libraries are apache 2.0, feel free to use them in your proprietary project under the license terms. See also https://termux.dev/en/posts/general/2024/11/11/termux-selected-for-nlnet-ngi-mobifree-grant.html#termux-core-library

[random-programming-guy]

Thank you so much, @agnostic-apollo.

I know this might be a bit off-topic to ask here, but I’d appreciate a quick follow-up in this thread.

In my Termux-based integration, I've noticed something odd: the apt in my app behaves quite differently from the stock Termux apt, even when both are built from the same source, are exactly the same version and run in the same environment (i.e. same bootstrap).

For example, in my apps apt the output formatting isn't styled like newer versions of apt as in termux (the colors the column layout etc).

But more critically, apt upgrade almost always fails in my app. It doesn’t resolve dependencies correctly and ends up breaking core binaries — even bash at times. Because of this, I always have to use apt full-upgrade instead. And this is a considerably big problem.

Also, as another important detail, I use Google Play Termux btw

[agnostic-apollo]

Google Play Termux is a fork and not maintained by us, check #4000. And you would need to compile all packages for your app package and then host your own repo for apt to work.

See also termux/termux-packages#24647 and https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-execution-environment#execution.