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Use parts of Cura in your own application.

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daid edited this page Dec 17, 2014 · 2 revisions

Using parts of Cura in your own application. This is an often asked question, and this is a general answer to it. Note that this a guideline, and that the full legal terms of the license applies.

The full text of the license is available at: https://github.com/daid/Cura/blob/SteamEngine/Cura/LICENSE

As the license is quite a complex legal document. There is an FAQ to answer the main questions about it right here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html And license Cura uses is AGPL, which expands on the above FAQ with the following FAQ: http://www.affero.org/oagf.html

Which boils down to. Yes, you can use it in commercial software. However, every part of Cura you use you also need to supply the source code of. As well as keeping copyright notices in place. You need to supply the AGPL license with your application. And, if you "link" (as in use any parts of Cura as a library) your own code with Cura's code, then you need to supply the sources of that as well, under AGPL or GPLv3. These restrictions mean that anyone can take the sourcecode for your application and then build&release their own version (as the GPL license allows this).

So, in practice the following restrictions are in place:

  • If you use any part of the Cura GUI, you'll most likely have to supply the source code of your application as well, under AGPL or GPLv3.
  • If you use the CuraEngine as a library, the same thing happens. As the "linking" clause of GPL forces this.
  • If you use the CuraEngine as an executable, you only need to supply the source code for the CuraEngine. As you are not actively linking Cura into your application and only calling an executable. (This is what Repetier-Host is currently doing)

With every option the following always must happen:

  • You need to supply the license file with your application, and may not misrepresent the parts from Cura as your own work.

Cura or parts of Cura are only supplied with the AGPL license. There is no dual-licensing happening, and no commercial license option available.

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