OpenSS7 provides commercial licensing of software released by The OpenSS7 Project under the Affero GPL Version 3 so that companies can release products based on OpenSS7 software free from the onerous constraints of the AGPL3 license.

The AGPL3 license is the most restrictive of open-source licenses. All OpenSS7 software, including interface libraries, are released under this license. The AGPL3 license requires all software that links with OpenSS7 software that is distributed, or that provides service over a network, to also be released under the GPL3 license. This requires any software written to use OpenSS7 stacks, deemed proprietary or not, to also be released under GPL3.

This choice of open-source license was both intentional and necessary. It was intentional to provide the software as open-source to those that could use it under this restrictive license, and necessary so that purely commercial uses of the software in combination with proprietary software would be required to provide a monetary contribution to furthering the project in lieu of a contribution in kind.

OpenSS7 provides two licensing services in fitting with these objectives:

Obtaining a commercial license for our software releases you from all obligations under the AGPL3 and your use of our software becomes governed by our boiler-plate or negotiated software license agreement. In general, our software license agreements provide you with the ability to treat our software as your own with regards to how it is included in your product and whatever modifications to it you may make.

For commercial licensing we charge a royalty. Terms from one-time royalty to per-copy royalties are available. Contact us at sales@openss7.com for more information on commercial licensing.

If you release a product containing or service using our open-source code under the AGPL3, it is necessary to meet the requirements of that license to avoid breaching the license grant.

If your product or service contains no proprietary components that link with our software, and otherwise meet the requirements of the license, we can audit your use of our software to verify compliance and provide an open-source compliance statement that you can use to verify compliance to third parties (customers, suppliers, courts). If your product, upon audit, does not meet the requirements of the license, we can provide the steps necessary to obtain compliance.

This is not a free service, unless your product is also free (as in beer), but we only charge enough to cover our time and expense. Contact us at sales@openss7.com for more information on open-source compliance.