Basically yes to everything you say, although politically it may get complicated. Section 10 of the GPL v3 forbids any further restrictions your rights under the license:

You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.

"For research purposes only" is exactly the sort of term this is targeting. In theory, if a program is claimed to be distributed under the GPL v3 and does contain an additional restriction you can remove that restriction via the wording in Section 7:

If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

So therefore you could try and distribute the code under the GPL without any further restrictions.

Looking at the specific terms you've mentioned:

<TheProject> is for research purposes only.

<TheProject> CAN NOT be used for commercial purposes.

These are both attempts to put additional restrictions on a piece of GPL licensed software. Section 7 means I can remove them, so they have no effect.

SHOULD NOT be used for medical purposes.

This is fine. I'm allowed to give any kind of hint I like about code, so long as it isn't an attempt to actually restrict people's rights.

The authors WILL NOT be responsible for using in medical conditions.

And again, this is fine - but almost certainly redundant given the much more extensive wordings in Section 15 and 16 of the GPL.

Searching for the term "GPL for research purposes only" shows a number of hits that shed a somewhat different light on the matter.

It seems that there is quite a bit of GPL'ed software in the academic medical world. Such software is generally not approved for regular medical use by the regulating agencies. Even if it was, any modification would render the regulatory approval invalid.

The GPL may grant you specific rights, including the right to use the software for medical purposes, but this grant cannot overrule regulatory obligations or other laws. The grant originates in, and is restricted to copyright law.

Note that you can replace "medical" with "aviation" or similar fields.

You are reading the user manual.

You are not reading copyright licence terms.

The technical name in United States law for what you are reading is directions for use. Almost all (there are exemptions) medical drugs and devices must come with them. You have probably seen them on medications that you have bought. Medical software is no exception. It counts as a medical device and must have them too. (It is known as software as a medical device, SaMD.)

The mandate for directions for use comes from statute, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act 1938, which prohibits:

(a) The introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate commerce of any food, drug, device, tobacco product, or cosmetic that is adulterated or misbranded.
(b) The adulteration or misbranding of any food, drug, device, tobacco product, or cosmetic in interstate commerce.
(c) The receipt in interstate commerce of any food, drug, device, tobacco product, or cosmetic that is adulterated or misbranded, and the delivery or proffered delivery thereof for pay or otherwise.

^{— 21 USC 331}

where misbranding is then defined in part as:

A drug or device shall be deemed to be misbranded—
[…] (f) […] Unless its labeling bears (1) adequate directions for use; […]

^{— 21 USC 352}

and adequate directions for use is defined by Federal regulation:

Adequate directions for use means directions under which the layman can use a device safely and for the purposes for which it is intended. Section 801.4 defines intended use.

^{— 21 CFR 1.801.5}

I leave you to read 21 CFR 1.801.4 for the details of intended use, as it is really too long for this answer.

So a layman software engineer's simplest way of thinking about this is (crudely, and not quite accurately) that this is a legally-required user manual, directing how the software should be used and giving the intended use according to its manufacturer. It is not a copyright licence term. It exists because of a completely different statute to copyright law. More than one law applies to this software.

Research use only (RUO) is also a technical term of the USFDA. From 21 CFR 1.809.10 one can take an approximate definition of RUO as being something that is in a "laboratory research phase of development, and not represented as an effective […] product".

Now whether you obey the directions for use when you have received a copy of the software is a completely different matter, not covered by the aforementioned statute and regulations. They tell the manufacturer what xe must provide with the software to you. If you manufacture, package, distribute, or sell the software in the U.S., then you must do that too. (Per 21 USC 333 it is fines per violation up to USD1,000,000 if you do not.) It's not a copyright term, and a copyright licence does not override it. It's the law for medical devices, including medical softwares.

(At one point, draft guidance from the FDA was that if you do not obey the directions for use on RUO devices, the manufacturer is obliged to stop supplying it to you. But again, this is a rule for the manufacturer rather than for you the recipient.)

Legal restrictions on medical softwares are not specific to the United States; and legal restrictions on softwares are not specific to medicine. In E.U. law, for example, the analogous name for U.S. intended use is intended purpose and the regulations apply to the people who design, manufacture, label, assemble, package, process, or fully refurbish medical devices (Council Directive 93/42/EEC 1(f) and 1(g)) which the E.U. also extends to cover medical softwares.

Further reading

• 
  Software as a Medical Device. United States Food and Drug Administration.


• 
  Medical devices: software applications. United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.


• Jamie K. Wolszon (2011-05-30). FDA Posts on its Website, then Removes, Draft Guidance that would Restrict Research Use Only, Investigational Use Only Status. FDA Law Blog. Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C..


• 
  Off-label use of a medical device. United Kingdom Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. 2014-12-08.


• 
  Guidelines on the qualification and classification of stand alone software used in healthcare within the regulatory framework of medical devices. MEDDEV 2.1/6. July 2016. European Commission.

The GNU GPL explicitly gives anyone receiving a copy of the software the right to use it for any purpose. That is in direct contradiction to "for research purposes only" and "CAN NOT be used for commercial purposes". So yes, that makes the license as a whole self-contradictory.

You are right that the licenses themselves are not free, but that only restricts making derived works of the license text itself. Just saying "GPL for research purposes only" does not make a derived work in a copyright sense, so the author of this program is free to do so. UPDATE: The GPLv3 text with additional notes should probably be considered a derived work, in which case the authors are violating the copyright of the Free Software Foundation here. That has no bearing on what you can or cannot do however.

As for whether you can restrict the rights listed in the GPL, that depends on who you are. The "you" in the license text is a licensee, i.e. someone who receives a copy of the program under the GPL. Section 10 says that when the licensee gives someone else a copy, that third party automatically gets all the same rights from the copyright owner (the licensor), and the licensee cannot add any other restrictions, e.g. by having the third party sign a contract first.

However, if this author is the copyright holder of the program, then they themselves are not a licensee, and they're not restricted by the GPL. As the copyright holder, they can distribute copies under any terms they like, including "GPL for research purposes only". They would not be distributing their program under the GPL, but that's their choice.

So the author is free to do this. However, restricting the allowed uses does automatically make this software non-free and non-Open Source, as well as incompatible with other GPL software, which makes it a pain to use even in an academic setting.

ADDITIONAL NOTES 
<TheProject> is for research purposes only. 
<TheProject> CAN NOT be used for commercial purposes.

I read this differently. There's some critical defect in the software's reliability rendering unfit for use OR there's a legal restriction other than the GPL in effect here that the author is not able to remove.

It's likely attuned software for medical research and doesn't have FDA certification for production use.

For an extremely bad analogy: the old Sun Java installers had a clause in the license "not licensed for use on nuclear reactors". It wasn't a political statement. As a matter of fact, the developers knew this was a very bad idea. At the time Java had a defect so bad that it rendered the entire machine it was running on unable to meet hard-realtime guarantees. Here I'd be speculating, but it's most likely they couldn't stomach the liability.

So I read this as an extremely short statement warning people not to do this. If they wrote it out in the explicitly legal form it wouldn't be understood so they appeared to impose additional restrictions so nobody would try it. It's hard to argue that something under "ADDITIONAL NOTES" is actual contract terms anyway.

This software isn't actually licensed under the GPL. It is licensed under a license created by the software author, which is inspired by the GPL - to the point where the software author apparently copied large portions of the GPL. The software author could even have copied the GPL and modified section 7 in the process. If he left section 7 intact, it would be up to the courts to decide what prevails. The outcome of any case is of course always up for guesses, but my guess is that a court would throw out the section 7 restriction in this case, because the intent of the author is clear.

Alternatively, a court could come to the conclusion that a licensee can exercise his right in section 7, but that this would automatically result in termination of the complete license, because there no longer is a "meeting of the minds" - that is, an agreement between the two parties on what the terms really should be.

Either way, the section 7 clause probably wouldn't hold up in court. At least based on my understanding of the law, and based on what would apply in California.

That said, the FSF could potentially sue anybody who uses such a modified GPL and heavily borrows verbatim text for copyright infringement. The question is whether this is practical.

Of course laws vary from country to country.

Not knowing which country the software comes from and not knowing in which country the software will be used makes it difficult.

Summary valid for Germany

1. A programmer would be allowed to say: "This program is provided under the terms of the GPL with the following exceptions/modifications: ..."




2. Because the "GPL for research purposes only" is a license which is not compatible to the GPL you would not be allowed to use "real" GPL code in programs licensed in such a license



3. 
   

   Actually the "GPL for research purposes only" would simply be different license than the "GPL" - just like the "Microsoft EULA" which is not the same license as the "GPL".

   
   
   

   Just like users of Microsoft products must observe the terms of the EULA, users of such a program must observe the "exceptions and modifications".

   
   

About point 1

The GPL is a copyrighted work. What license permits you to copy and distribute the GPL with a work that the GPL itself does not apply to?

• 
  

  If you ship a copy of the GPL or of the modified GPL with your program:
  
  Maybe yes (if the GPL is copyrighted).

  
  
  

  However if you don't ship a copy of the GPL and write:
  
  "I want you to follow all terms and conditions of the GPL which you you can download from the FSF plus the following terms and conditions: ...":
  
  No (even if the GPL is copyrighted)

  
  
  

  According to the German UrhG law you would even be allowed to cite small parts of the GPL without needing the copyright owner's permission.

  
  


• 
  

  German UrhG law defines which kind of work can be copyright protected at all:
  
  "Literature, scientific work and arts" (*)

  
  
  

  There were already trials in court if texts not matching one of these categories can be copyright protected or not.

  
  
  

  For example there was a trial at the LG Stuttgart court about the text of a contract (and the GPL is a contract). The decision of the court:

  
  
  

  Normally the text of contracts cannot be copyright protected because they are neither "literature" nor "scientific" nor "artwork". Only "very outstanding" contracts can be seen as "literature" (*) and therefore are protected. For this reason contracts normally can be copied and modified without needing any permission.

  
  
  

  Needless to say that sentences like "this text is copyright protected" have no relevance at all when the law says that a certain text is not copyright protected.

  
  
  

  (*) As "amon" mentioned in his comment the translation "literature" is not 100% correct; the law for example explicitly says that "computer programs" are "literature".

  
  

About point 3

You can say "this is the GPL with additional restrictions" but Section 7 means I can ignore those restrictions

There was a trial at the LG Munich court if the GPL simply can be ignored or if you have to follow the GPL terms and conditions when you distribute the Linux OS.

One of the main questions was the English word "license" means. The answer of the court was:

• You are only allowed to use software when you have the permission of the copyright owner.


• A "license" is the set of conditions that the copyright owner requires you to observe to grant you the permission to use the software.


• So by licensing a program under GPL the copyright owner grants the permission only under certain conditions. If you don't observe these conditions, no permissions were granted and you are not allowed to use the software.

So if a software's license information says: "GPL for research only" ...

• ... the copyright owner grants you permissions only if you use the software for research. He or she does not grant you permissions for any other use. So using the software for any other purpose would be using the software without permission.


• ... the "set of conditions you have to observe" is obviously not the same as the set of conditions described in the GPL. Therefore the "GPL for research only" and the "GPL" are two different sets of conditions and therefore two different "licenses".

About point 2

The LG Berlin court has decided that the term that GPL code must only be used in other GPL programs is a valid condition.

So by licensing your software under GPL license you grant other programmers to use your code in other GPL-licensed programs but you don't automatically grant them to use your code in programs not licensed under GPL conditions.

And as I have written above a program licensed under a "modified GPL" is not licensed under "GPL" so it would be illegal to use foreign GPL-licensed code in such programs.

As far as I know, GPL 2 and 3 are not themselves free, in sense that you can't change them and still call them GPL.

Correct, the license for the GPLv2 and GPLv3 documents themselves is:

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

However, in this case, sticking something on the end of the license file (with a clear delimiter) is probably "aggregation", which is probably fine. Lots of people do it to provide a single license document, and the FSF hasn't started suing people who do that.
So you could also claim estoppel (fancy legal term for "you knew about this and if you wanted to sue about it then you should have done it ages ago, you didn't object so I thought you were alright with it, so it's too late to sue now"). In practise the FSF (who own the copyright in the GPL license documents themselves) are extremely unlikely to sue over it.

Also, as far as I remember, they don't allow developers to restrict the rights granted by them. Cases such as GPL, GPL or GPL + exceptions, or GPL or another license are possible, but GPL with some rights is removed is not allowed.

The copyright owner of the software can license their work under whatever license they like, with whatever exceptions & limitations they like, with very few exceptions.

Of course, that only applies if the person owns the copyright to the whole program. If the program is based on a GPLv2 work that has no exceptions or limitations, then the program can only be licensed under GPLv2, no extra exceptions or limitations can be added unless all the copyright owners agree.

Given the above, is the idea of licensing code under "GPL for research purposes only" self-contradictory?

Nope, it's perfectly legal.

It's also a bad idea, because it leads to license proliferation and fragmentation. "GPLv2 for research purposes only" code cannot be mixed with real GPLv2 code - or rather it's impossible to legally ship the combination.

I cannot comment, so I leave you this link with the inverse question if a GPL3 license can be retricted to non commercial use only:

(And in fact, if you look it from that side, well the GPL license cannot be restricted, but you can restrict when GPL applies and when not. Officially they're not changing the GPL3 license. They are saying, that if you use the software for research purpose, the GPL3 license applies, but if you use it connercially, well, you have no right to do so, so there's no license for this use-case. And that is completely legal as far as I know. The use case comes in before the license applies, as far as I can see...)

Is it possible to restrict GNU GPLv3 to non-commercial use only?

EDIT: Ok, given Bart van Ingen Schenau's answer and checking the license itself it's very clear:

I'd like to license my code under the GPL, but I'd also like to make it clear that it can't be used for military and/or commercial uses. Can I do this? (#NoMilitary)

No, because those two goals contradict each other. The GNU GPL is designed specifically to prevent the addition of further restrictions.
GPLv3 allows a very limited set of them, in section 7, but any other added restriction can be removed by the user. More generally, a license that limits who can use a program, or for what, is not a free software license.

And:

If I use a piece of software that has been obtained under the GNU GPL, am I allowed to modify the original code into a new program, then distribute and sell that new program commercially? (#GPLCommercially)

You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL.

These requirements are the condition for including the GPL-covered code you received in a program of your own.

From the information given, this is a case of dual licensing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing

Some answers confuse this. What you can not do is release code under the GPL and then add restrictions to its use. The GPL forbids that.

However what you can do is release the code under different licenses for different purposes. In such case, outside research purposes, the GPL does not apply because the code was not relased under the GPL for such purposes.