Keyfile support was initially added under GPL-2.0+ license as part of
core. It was moved to "libnm-core" in commit 59eb5312a5 ('keyfile: merge
branch 'th/libnm-keyfile-bgo744699'').
"libnm-core" is statically linked with by core and "libnm". In
the former case under terms of GPL-2.0+ (good) and in the latter case
under terms of LGPL-2.1+ (bad).
In fact, to this day, "libnm" doesn't actually use the code. The linker
will probably remove all the GPL-2.0+ symbols when compiled with
gc-sections or LTO. Still, linking them together in the first place
makes "libnm" only available under GPL code (despite the code
not actually being used).
Instead, move the GPL code to a separate static library
"shared/nm-keyfile/libnm-keyfile.la" and only link it to the part
that actually uses the code (and which is GPL licensed too).
This fixes the license violation.
Eventually, it would be very useful to be able to expose keyfile
handling via "libnm". However that is not straight forward due to the
licensing conflict.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/merge_requests/381
d964decbbd