# Free licence private and coorporate use

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [October 3, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242 "2016-10-03T14:03:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![elbatiston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@elbatiston](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/elbatiston)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/1 "2016-10-03T14:03:22Z")

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This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

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**Author:** ![Rich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Rich](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Rich)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/2 "2016-10-03T14:24:54Z")

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> I would like to verify that the software is completely free Jabref is for  
> private and corporative use,

Evandro,

Short answer: yes. Longer answer: open JabRef and click on the Help menu.  
At the bottom is the ‘About JabRef’ item. Click on that. At the top of the  
page you’ll read, “GNU General Public License v2 or later.”

Then point your Web browser to  
[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html) and you can read about the  
different licenses (they all allow free – as in beer – use as well as  
providing the source code if you want this.)

You can provide your management with copies of the license.

Rich

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**Author:** ![Siedlerchr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/siedlerchr/32/216_2.png) [@Siedlerchr](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Siedlerchr)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/3 "2016-10-03T14:46:55Z")

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Hello Evandro,

> I am interested in installing software on corporative computer, but need to check if the corporative use is free.

first of all we appreciate that 😉

Yes, JabRef is complete free to use, even commercially, JabRef is distributed under the MIT License:  
While older Versions of JabRef were distributed under the GNU Licence, we changed it to the MIT Licence which allows for more freedom in the usage.

The license itself:

> **[The MIT License](https://opensource.org/license/mit/)**
>
> Copyright Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software…

A quick overview what you can do and what not provides this site:

> **[MIT License (Expat) Explained in Plain English - TLDRLegal](https://www.tldrlegal.com/license/mit-license)**
>
> MIT License (Expat) summarized/explained in plain English.

Best Regards  
Christoph

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**Author:** ![Rich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Rich](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Rich)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/4 "2016-10-03T15:42:27Z")

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> While older Versions of JabRef were distributed under the GNU Licence, we  
> changed it to the MIT Licence which allows for more freedom in the usage.

Christoph,

Apparently the 3.6 version help page missed that change. It still reads  
GPV-2 or greater. 🙂

Rich

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**Author:** ![mlep](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/mlep/32/387_2.png) [@mlep](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/mlep)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/5 "2016-10-03T16:02:27Z")

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Indeed, there is a mismatch between a recent merge ( [https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/pull/94](https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/pull/94) ) and the current license file ( [https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md](https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md) )

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**Author:** ![Siedlerchr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/siedlerchr/32/216_2.png) [@Siedlerchr](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Siedlerchr)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/6 "2016-10-03T16:15:54Z")

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Just to clarify,

@Rich As this was an ongoing process, it was not yet read for version 3.6. See here for details:

> **[JabRef/jabref](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref#license)**
>
> Graphical Java application for managing BibTeX and biblatex (.bib) databases - JabRef/jabref

  
However, the current development version shows the correct MIT-License.

@mlep There is no dedicated help page. And your linked issue was about the Help Contents (they are under CC)

Regards,  
Christoph

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**Author:** ![mlep](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/mlep/32/387_2.png) [@mlep](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/mlep)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 4:47pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/7 "2016-10-03T16:47:56Z")

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@Siedlerchr Ooops… Proper link: [https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md](https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md)

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**Author:** ![elbatiston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@elbatiston](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/elbatiston)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 11:00am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/8 "2016-10-04T11:00:54Z")

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thank you for helping me

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**Author:** ![koppor](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/koppor/32/5_2.png) [@koppor](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/koppor)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/9 "2016-10-08T15:42:04Z")

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It is the about dialog of 3.6 which still shows GPL. This is fixed in our development builds ([https://builds.jabref.org/](https://builds.jabref.org/))

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**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/free-licence-private-and-coorporate-use/242/10 "2016-10-09T08:05:48Z")

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