Cmajor Licensing

Different Cmajor licensing options

Cmajor is available under a dual GPLv3/Commercial licensing scheme.

If you fully comply with the terms of the GPLv3 (or later) then you can use Cmajor without needing to contact us.

If you’d like to embed the Cmajor engine in a closed-source product, or to mix it with non-GPL-compliant code, then we offer commercial licenses to cover many types of use-case (and can discuss any custom requirements you may have).

Commercial License terms

The Cmajor commercial license can be viewed here or downloaded here.

Our commercial licenses are perpetual licenses to use the current version of the software. When there is a major version upgrade, existing customers can either continue using the old version, or upgrade their license to take advantage of the ongoing changes.

Our pricing tiers are:

If you’re an educational institution, e.g. a university, doing non-GPL development, contact us to discuss a per-seat license.

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FAQs

It is possible to reassign licences amongst members of an organisation?

If an organisation has purchased a set of licences for their software development team, then when a team member leaves the team their licence seat can be reassigned to a new team member. Reassigning licences can be done using the account dashboard of the licence purchaser.

Reassigning licences should not be done very frequently. This is not a mechanism designed to optimise the minimum number of licences required. If you have multiple developers regularly, but non-concurrently, contributing code to software containing Cmajor then you will require multiple licences.

Is the total annual revenue or funding limit determined solely by sales of software containing Cmajor?

No. The total annual revenue or funding limit is that of the whole organisation or individual that owns the Cmajor licence. If your team or project is a small part of a large organisation then you will likely require a Pro licence. The revenue or funding limit is not based upon revenue generated by software containing Cmajor nor the budget of a particular team or individual within an organisation.

Do I need a Cmajor licence if I am not releasing products containing Cmajor?

Cmajor is dual licensed under both our commercial licences and the GPLv3.

This means that you can choose to use Cmajor under the terms of the GPLv3 licence. If you are not “propagating” or “conveying” closed-source software containing Cmajor outside of your organisation then you may not be violating the terms of the GPLv3. The creation and use of “in-house” tools and the internal development of “pre-release” software (before it goes out to external testers) is usually permitted under the GPLv3. Please refer to the GPLv3 terms for the full details.

If you are not using Cmajor under the GPLv3 then you will require a commercial licence. You will need to maintain a licence for at least the duration over which you are distributing closed-source binaries containing Cmajor.

How many licenced developer seats do I need?

By default all developers contributing any source code to software containing cmajor will require a licence.

However, there are certain situations where this doesn’t make much sense. If the software development team using Cmajor is a small fraction of the overall software development team, and the use of Cmajor is not central to the overall product, then it is more appropriate that only the developers in the team using Cmajor directly will require licences. If you’d like to discuss what might constitute a fair number of seats for your situation, contact us at info@cmajor.dev.

While Cmajor licences can be infrequently reassigned between developers, our licensing is not designed to be flexible with regards to team size. If a product containing Cmajor ever had a large development team then it is the maximum concurrent size of the development team that fixes the number of licence seats required. If the team size is subsequently reduced to just a few people providing product maintenance post-release the product still requires the larger number of licence seats for the entire duration over which the product is distributed.

Do I need a Cmajor licence to sell Cmajor-based software created by another entity?

No. The software needs to be licensed by all the contributors to the source code. If you have not contributed to any of the source code then you do not require a licence.

However, you must ensure that the software is appropriately licensed for the whole duration over which you are distributing it. If any of the contributors are third parties then the distributor/seller is legally obliged to ensure that the corresponding licences are perpetal, rather than per-month subscription licences.

I want to hire a contractor to contribute to software containing cmajor. Do I need a licence or does the contractor need a licence?

You can use either option.

If the hiring organisation purchases a licence then that licence can be used by the contractor for the duration of their work. When the contractor has finished the work the licence can then be re-assigned to a different contractor. If the hiring organisation will have a fixed maximum number of contractors working simultaneously then this licensing model may be the most appropriate.

It is also possible for contractors to have their own individual licences. In this situation the relevant revenue or funding limit will be that of the contractor, so it may be possible for contractors to use Indie licences where the revenue of the hiring organisation would exceed the Indie funding or revenue limit. However, the hiring organisation is responsible for ensuring that the software is appropriately licensed for the whole duration over which it is distributed (see the answer to the previous question above).

Can a Cmajor Educational licence be used by students?

No. Our Educational licences are offered to bona fide educational institutions and come with the number of seats requested by the educational institution. Institutions requesting Educational licences must agree to submit any requested documentation to show proof of a bona fide educational institute.

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