Yes — but the combined work must be released under the more restrictive license.
GNU Affero GPL v3.0 or later's network-copyleft is a superset of GNU GPL v2.0 or later's. The combined work, when distributed or run as a network service, must comply with GNU Affero GPL v3.0 or later (the stricter set of obligations). Source disclosure to network users applies.
| License | Family | Patent grant |
|---|---|---|
| GNU Affero GPL v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later) | network-copyleft | Yes |
| GNU GPL v2.0 or later (GPL-2.0-or-later) | strong-copyleft | No (implicit at most) |
GNU Affero GPL v3.0 or later: AGPL-3.0 with explicit upgrade path.
GNU GPL v2.0 or later: GPL-2.0 with explicit upgrade path; users may pick GPL-2.0 or any later GPL.
If you found this page because you're trying to figure out whether shipping a particular dependency is safe, the answer above is a starting point — not a substitute for reading the actual licenses or talking to a lawyer when stakes are high.
LicenseHound walks every transitive dependency in your repo, maps each to its SPDX license, and flags pairs like this one in PR comments. The CLI is free; the team dashboard is paid.