Server License (BUSL-1.1)

Plain language summary

The source code is available to read, study, and modify.

Personal use and non-commercial community use are free.

Hosting for your own team or community (no charge to users) is permitted.

Commercial use (e.g., reselling server capacity, SaaS with SpeakEasy server code) requires a commercial license.

This is source-available, not open source. BUSL is not an OSI-approved license.

About the Business Source License

The Business Source License 1.1 (BUSL-1.1) is a source-available license developed by MariaDB and used by a number of infrastructure projects. It is not an open source license as defined by the Open Source Initiative — it includes restrictions on commercial use.

Under BUSL-1.1, the source code becomes fully open source (Apache 2.0) after a specified change date. For SpeakEasy server code, that change date is four years from the date of each version's release.

The cryptographic library is separately licensed under Apache 2.0 and is fully open source. The BUSL applies only to the server-side infrastructure code.

What is and is not permitted

Permitted without a commercial license

Personal use on your own infrastructure
Running a Community Server for your organisation or community
Non-commercial self-hosting
Forking and modifying for non-commercial purposes
Security research and auditing
Academic use

Requires a commercial license

Offering SpeakEasy server capacity as a paid service
Including SpeakEasy server code in a commercial product
SaaS products built on SpeakEasy server infrastructure
Managed hosting of SpeakEasy servers for paying customers
Any production commercial use exceeding the permitted use limit

Client applications

The client applications (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, web) are distributed under a separate end-user license agreement (EULA). The BUSL applies only to server-side infrastructure code. The cryptographic library used by clients and servers is open source under Apache 2.0.