Licensing, in plain English
OwnLLM is source-available: you can read, build, modify and run the code. It is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 (LICENSE), with these terms for production use:
| Who you are | Cost |
|---|---|
| An individual using it for yourself (not for a business, employer or client, and not to earn money) | Free |
| A company or organization with total annual revenue under US$5 million (counting your affiliates) | Free |
| A company or organization at or above US$5 million | A commercial license from US$1,900 a year, priced by revenue band: see COMMERCIAL.md |
| Anyone, for evaluation, testing, development, learning or research | Free |
- "Revenue" means total annual gross revenue in your most recently completed fiscal year, together with your affiliates. For a non-profit, school or government body, use its annual budget or income. If your revenue reaches US$5 million, you need a commercial license from the start of your next fiscal year.
- Offering OwnLLM to others (hosted, managed, or embedded in a product) is production use, and the revenue from it counts toward the threshold.
- An individual who earns money with it is covered by the revenue rule, not the personal rule.
- The license is on the honor system: OwnLLM contains no license checks, no activation and no tracking.
- Each version becomes Apache-2.0 four years after it is published, with no restrictions at all.
What stays as it was
- Versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1 were released under the Apache License 2.0 and remain under it for anyone who received them. The terms above apply from 1.1.0.
- Third-party parts keep their own licenses (the llama.cpp engine is MIT; the Qwen model files are Apache-2.0). See THIRD_PARTY.md. Using the models never requires an OwnLLM commercial license.
Questions
- *I am a freelancer or consultant using it for client work.* That is use for the benefit of clients, so it counts as business use: free if your revenue is under US$5 million.
- *My employer lets me try it at work.* Trying it out is non-production use and is free. Using it in production for the employer follows the employer's revenue.
- *Can I contribute?* Yes: see CONTRIBUTING.md.
This page is a summary. The license text in LICENSE is what governs. It is not legal advice.