# Announcement: module\_utils License Guidelines Change **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Developer\ **Tags:** galaxy-ng\ **Created:** [August 14, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/announcement-module-utils-license-guidelines-change/28332 "2018-08-14T21:55:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![maxamillion](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/maxamillion/32/98_2.png) [@maxamillion](https://forum.ansible.com/u/maxamillion)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/announcement-module-utils-license-guidelines-change/28332/1 "2018-08-14T21:55:21Z")
Hello all,     Recently there was a discussion and a vote among the Core Developer Community about licencing of module\_utils and it was decided to change the guideline[0]. There is a pull request with the changes to the Developer Docs[1] open, but the new Guideline is as follows: All modules shipped with Ansible must be done so under the GPLv3 license. Files under the lib/ansible/module\_utils/ directory should be done so under the BSD license. However, some exceptions exist. ``module\_utils`` that are for a small set of modules for a specific vendor's hardware, provider, or service are allowed to be under GPLv3+ instead of BSD Licensing. module\_utils that are generic in nature (could be used with modules from more than one vendor or project) must be BSD as this allows third party and Galaxy modules to utilize the libraries without dictating their license. If there's doubt as to which category a module\_util falls into, the Ansible Core Team will decide during an Ansible Core Community Meeting. If there are any past attempts to merge GPLv3 code into module\_utils that authors feel meet the criteria of the new Guidelines, please feel free to re-open pull requests or add it to the agenda for the next Core Community Meeting[2]. Thank you, -AdamM [0] - [https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/329#issuecomment-413005278](https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/329#issuecomment-413005278) [1] - [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/44144](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/44144) [2] - [https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/329](https://github.com/ansible/community/issues/329)