🖖 Spree under AGPLv3 may be used privately
Spree Commerce Community Edition may be used for free and privately for single-tenant eCommerce applications without any code disclosure under the AGPLv3 license. This benefits all small business developers building online stores for themselves or their clients.
Spree may be used privately for single-tenant applications
After listening to feedback from the Spree community members and licensing experts, to clarify our intentions and Spree Commerce Community Edition licensing, we now recognize that AGPLv3 Section 13 does apply when users interact with a modified version of Spree over a network, including through a Spree-enabled storefront.
We appreciate the community’s insight and have updated our guidance to reflect this.
That being said, we still stand firmly behind our commitment to not enforce AGPLv3 Section 13 (code disclosure requirement) against single-tenant store operators, and encourage those users to keep building on Spree with confidence.
This is defined in our posted Spree Commerce Developer Covenant.
The Developer Covenant
Spree Commerce Community Edition is licensed under AGPLv3, which ensures that improvements to Spree, especially from Software as a Service applications, are shared with the community.
To be clear: AGPLv3 Section 13 requires source code disclosure when modified versions of Spree are accessed over a network, including through a web storefront.
Nevertheless, we know many of our users are business developers building a single-tenant Spree-powered store for themselves or their clients. For those users, you are not our code disclosure enforcement target as per AGPLv3 Section 13.
To make this exception clear, we have published a Spree Commerce Developer Covenant that assures you that you can run your single-tenant store without legal concern from us as the Spree license holder.
Spree’s dual licensing model for SaaS applications
Spree Commerce Community Edition may be used to build multi-tenant SaaS applications or otherwise commercially distributed, and we encourage you to do so.
Spree Commerce Community Edition may be:
- used for Software as a Service applications
- or otherwise commercially distributed, even when modified
In one of two legally acceptable ways:
- for free, as long as all source code is shared with its users as per AGPLv3 Section 13,
- after purchasing a Commercial License, allowing for private use of the modified Spree source code.
This dual-licensing model ensures that the Spree community benefits directly or indirectly from the commercial use of Spree.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you
In case of any questions, feel free to reach out:
- on Spree Slack: https://slack.spreecommerce.org/
- by email: [email protected]
Thank you for supporting Spree open-source.
