Hello everybody.
JUCE 8 is approaching, and with it there are some changes to JUCE’s End User Licensing Agreement.
This post contains a summary of the most important changes, but please refer to the text of the new licence agreement itself for full details:
The JUCE 8 End User Licence Agreement - JUCE
JUCE 8 is at least 30 days away from being released. Upon the launch of JUCE 8 all JUCE 7 subscriptions will be automatically upgraded to JUCE 8 subscriptions and will become subject to the JUCE 8 End User Licence Agreement.
A JUCE 8 licence grants the holder the right to continue using JUCE 7 (and all other previous versions of JUCE) but if you wish to remain on a JUCE 7 licence you must purchase JUCE 7 perpetual licence seats to replace your subscription seats and cancel your JUCE 7 subscription within the next 30 days. Once JUCE 8 is available we will no longer be selling JUCE 7 licences.
If you cease creating or distributing software containing JUCE before the launch of JUCE 8 then you can cancel your JUCE 7 subscription without the purchase of perpetual licences.
If you own JUCE 7 perpetual licences then you can continue using JUCE 7 under the terms of the JUCE 7 licence even if you upgrade those licences to JUCE 8.
Tiers and Pricing
| Starter | Indie | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Revenue or Funding Limit | Up to $20,000 | Up to $300,000 | No limit |
| Minimum Commitment for a Subscription | N/A | 1 month | 12 months |
| Monthly Subscription Price per user | N/A | $40 | $175 |
| Perpetual Price per user | Free | $800 | $3500 |
JUCE 8 features a much more generous Starter tier, with a narrower definition of income and the requirement to display a splash screen removed. This makes it easier to get started with JUCE commercially and fixes some issues with open source projects interoperating with the VST3 and AAX licences (see this thread).
The price of an Indie subscription is unchanged but, having been held fixed since 2020, the price for the Pro tier has increased and the revenue or funding limit for the Indie tier has reduced.
We will continue to offer a 30% discount on Perpetual licence prices for existing licence holders.
Anyone who purchases a Perpetual JUCE 7 licence between now and the release of JUCE 8 will get the cost of the JUCE 7 licence discounted from the cost of a JUCE 8 licence if they upgrade to JUCE 8 in the 30 days after its release. This makes it so that there is no financial reason to delay purchasing a Perpetual licence if you need one immediately.
If you have purchased a Perpetual JUCE 7 licence within the last couple of months we will be reaching out to you with a similar offer.
Revenue limits
The narrower definition of revenue applies to individuals:
If the owner of a Licence is an individual, or an entity that does not have a separate legal identity from an individual, the applicable annual revenue or funding limit is the total revenue or funding generated by that individual or entity’s use of the Framework from all sources, including donations, sponsorship, advertising, and any other indirect revenue from their use of the Framework.
For companies, or other legal entities, the revenue limit remains applicable to all revenue.
Licences for product owners
For the purposes of this Agreement, the owner (“Owner”) of a Product is the entity or person legally responsible for the development or maintenance of the Product. The Owner of a Product is responsible for the licensing of the Framework in relation to that Product.
For the purposes of this Agreement, a “User” is an employee, agent, independent contractor, or third party developer of the Licensee or any of the Licensee’s Affiliates who is permitted or authorised to use the Framework. Where the Licensee is an individual the User is the Licensee themselves.
Users developing or maintaining a Product for an Owner must be provided with a Licence to use the Framework by the Product Owner. For the avoidance of doubt, a User is not required to obtain an additional or separate Licence to use the Framework beyond that procured by the Product Owner.
This is a change from JUCE 7 where an organisation or company could use the licence seats of contractors to licence software containing JUCE. From JUCE 8 the owning entity is responsible for licensing the software. The licence seats required by the owning entity can be used by contractors. Furthermore, if a contract with one contractor has finished, then their licence seat can be reassigned to a new, subsequent, contractor.
If you are only doing contract work then you will not require your own licence - you must use a licence seat provided by the product owner.
Whilst a product owner will, in most cases, be clearly defined by the legal agreements surrounding that product, another test could be: “A new law has come into effect mandating certain accessibility features are present in the product. Who is the entity that is obliged to make that change?”.
The number of licence seats required
We have clarified the language around the terms in the End User Licence Agreement that defines the number of licence seats required.
Every User contributing to or modifying source code, object code, content or any other copyrightable work that is either directly or transitively dependent upon the Framework, or modifying the Framework itself included in any Product, requires a Licence. This includes configuration files or “presets” that embed, inject, or otherwise incorporate logic that directly or transitively depends upon the Framework. Any static content that retains its full functionality if the Framework were removed is exempted. Separation of individuals working on Products into teams does not reduce the number of Licences required.
In the event the software development team using the Framework can be shown to be a small fraction of the overall software development team, and the use of the Framework is not important to the overall Product, then we may, at our sole discretion, allow a Product to be licensed using fewer seats than would otherwise be required by this Agreement. If your use of JUCE meets these conditions, please contact sales@juce.com to discuss an alternative licensing arrangement.
Only Users associated with your entity require licence seats.
If you are using source code or libraries provided by a third party you do not need to purchase additional licence seats.
The development of source code that has no direct nor transitive dependency on JUCE does not require any licence seats. If JUCE can be deleted, and that source code retains its full functionality, then there is no licensing requirement.
All media files (images, audio, text, MIDI, etc) are static content without “functionality” and are not included.
Preset files that are just parameter values are static content and are not included.
Preset files that allow you to dynamically parameterise software containing JUCE are not static content. This is stretching what a “preset” is typically known as, but this sort of thing exists and it is not functionally different from a script. These would be included.
If you are using a DSP library that uses JUCE internally, and you have no reasonable way to know this (as it is owned by a completely separate entity or similar), then it is not included.
Reducing the number of licence seats required
JUCE 8 includes new provisions for reducing the number of licence seats required.
If a Product has been developed or maintained using a subscription Licence then all subscription Licence seats required to develop or maintain that Product must be kept active to continue developing and Distributing the Product. Except as set out below, if the size of the team developing or maintaining a Product is reduced you must maintain a subscription for the original number of Licence seats to continue to develop and Distribute the Product.
If a subscription is cancelled, the number of seats reduced, or the corresponding fees for the subscription are not paid, then you must immediately cease development and Distribution of a Product unless you purchase the corresponding number of perpetual Licences seats.
You may reduce the number of Licence seats required to maintain or Distribute a Product to the number of Users currently requiring a licence seat to maintain that Product when upgrading to the next Major version of JUCE. Indie subscription Licence holders may reduce the number of seats in their subscription to the number required to maintain or Distribute a Product at any time providing that there remains at least one active subscription or perpetual Licence seat at all times and all corresponding Minimum Commitments have been fulfilled.
Products that provide JUCE as a service
You may not create, make available as a service, nor Distribute Products that create other Products. Any Products that are created using software or a service must be licensed by the user of that software or service.
Please contact sales@juce.com for an alternative licence agreement if you want to Distribute Products that create Products.
Please see this thread.
Questions
If you have any questions about the JUCE 8 End User Licence Agreement please consider posting them in this forum thread. All questions added to this topic will help other licensees understand the changes.
Alternatively, if you need to ask questions privately, please contact info@juce.com.
