{"id":"Sustainable-Use-License","title":"Sustainable Use License","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/n8n-io/n8n/master/LICENSE.md","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the Sustainable Use License, version 1.0, written on the same skeleton as the Elastic License 2.0. The grant is the same but the limitation is different in kind: you may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use, and you may pass it on only free of charge and for non-commercial purposes. It is not an open source licence, and the file that publishes it also carves out the source files marked as enterprise code.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, record identifier and IRI local name agree. The triple is left out: the SPDX list does not carry this licence and no identifier is invented. cc:legalcode points at the file the publisher ships and dct:source at the same file's page.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"dcmitype:Software only. The text speaks of source code files and of the software.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"'The licensor grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, non-sublicensable, non-transferable license to use, copy, distribute, make available, and prepare derivative works of the software.' That gives odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks and dalicc:ModifiedWorks, and the Patents section gives dalicc:patentGrant.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"minor","field":"cc:CommercialUse","description":"cc:CommercialUse is left unstated. The Limitations section allows use 'for your own internal business purposes', which a company may well do to earn money, and at the same time allows passing the software on only 'free of charge for non-commercial purposes'. The text draws its line around the act rather than around the character of the use, so the line is carried by the two fee prohibitions and by dalicc:fieldOfUseRestriction, and the clause is quoted.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:chargeDistributionFee and dalicc:chargeLicenseFee for 'You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge'. dalicc:sublicense for 'non-sublicensable'. dalicc:ChangeLicense for 'These terms do not imply any licenses other than those expressly granted in these terms', read with the Notices section. dalicc:promote because no trademark rights are granted. dalicc:patentRetaliationTermination for the written-claim sentence. dalicc:exemptedMaterial for the carve-out at the head of the file: 'Source code files that contain \".ee.\" in their filename or \".ee\" in their dirname are NOT licensed under the Sustainable Use License.' That is the same use of the term as on OGL-UK-2.0 and NLOD-2.0, material outside the grant.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:Notice and cc:ShareAlike on odrl:distribute for 'You must ensure that anyone who gets a copy of any part of the software from you also gets a copy of these terms', with dalicc:modificationNotice added on odrl:modify and odrl:derive for the prominent-notice sentence.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"The No Liability section is one sentence covering warranty and liability, quoted whole into dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer as in CAL-1.0 and Elastic-2.0. Eight further clauses are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses, including the carve-out paragraphs that open the file.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:terminatesOnBreach","description":"dalicc:terminatesOnBreach is true and dalicc:curePeriod is '30 days'. cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and the text names no governing law.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:fieldOfUseRestriction","description":"'Your own internal business purposes' has no term. dalicc:fieldOfUseRestriction is the nearest literal and the clause is quoted. Proposed term: dalicc:internalUseOnly, a duty action for a licence that confines the licensee to use inside its own organization, which several source-available texts need.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer, run against licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, returned no conflicts. Prohibiting both fee actions raises nothing, because neither odrl:sell nor odrl:commercialize is permitted in this record.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"record","description":"Against Elastic-2.0 this record keeps the grant, the patent terms, the notice duties and the termination clause word for word, and differs in the limitation: two fee prohibitions and a field-of-use restriction here, a hosted-service bar and a licence-key clause there. It is the only record in this set that carries dalicc:exemptedMaterial.","action":"none"}],"family":"Source-available licences and riders","port_of":null,"variant_kind":null,"variant_of":null,"notes":"The file that publishes the licence is a project's own LICENSE file and starts with three paragraphs about which parts of that project the licence covers. Those paragraphs are quoted because the carve-out they make is part of what a reader gets, but they are the project's words rather than the licence's, and another project using the same licence would not have them."}