Overview

Launchpad is free of charge for free software projects. There are many definitions of 'free' and 'free software' so we have included our own set of guidelines.

Note: if you want to use Launchpad for a project that doesn't meet these licensing guidelines, please see here.

What we mean by free software

To use Launchpad free of charge, a software project must meet these conditions.

• It must include source code. "Source code" means the preferred form of the work for making modifications. For documentation, it might be XML source files; for images, GIMP XCF files; etc.
• It must allow modification and distribution of modified copies under the same licence. Just having the source code does not convey the same freedom as having the right to change it.
• It must allow redistribution.
• It must not require royalty payments or any other fee for redistribution or modification.
• It must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software.
• It must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavour. The licence of software hosted by Launchpad can not discriminate against anyone or any group of users and cannot restrict users from using the software for a particular field of endeavour - a business for example.
• It must not be distributed under a licence specific to one operating system. The rights attached to the software must not depend on the programme's being part of Ubuntu, for example.
• It must not contaminate other software licences. The licence must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with it. For example, the licence must not insist that all other programmes distributed on the same medium be free software.
• It may require source modifications to be distributed as patches. In some cases, software authors are happy for others to distribute their software and modifications to their software, as long as the two are distributed separately, so that people always have a copy of their pristine code. We are happy to respect this preference. However, the licence must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code.