Free for you. Friendly for business.
Bread is a reusable source-available commercial license for creators who want to keep their software accessible and earn from it. One complete product. Clear prices. No activation servers or license surveillance.
This page explains Bread License 1.0; each adopter identifies the software it covers. The reusable model alone grants no software rights.
| Who you are | What Bread offers |
|---|---|
| Individuals & evaluators | Always free. Software received under Bread stays free for personal projects and genuine evaluation. No sign-up, countdown, or commitment to buy. |
| Teams & companies | One license. Your whole company. Business use is free below US$1m in annual consolidated revenue across the company group. At or above that threshold, use paid or existing coverage. A purchase provides permanent rights to covered releases and at least twelve months of new-release coverage. Each project publishes its price. |
| Redistributors & hosts | Share and sell without royalties. Recipients need their own applicable permission; your company license does not cover theirs. An independent provider's own hosted service uses the provider's permission. Customers' own deployments use their own permission. |
Share the Bread-licensed code and your changes when distributing it. Your independent application code keeps its own terms. The details below explain the boundaries and what happens when you stop paying.
Personal projects, small companies, and evaluation
Personal use covers your own non-business activities. Independent paid work follows your business's eligibility; operating a client's deployment uses the client's permission. Genuine evaluation is free at any organization, without a deadline. Routine work using adopted software, including product development, follows the business rules.
Count consolidated revenue across the ultimate controlling parent and its controlled entities for the last completed financial year. Financing, investment proceeds, valuation, and headcount are excluded. Without a completed year, use revenue since formation without annualizing it. Business use stays free while eligible; it does not create a permanent business grant. The business rules explain annual assessment and the 90-day transition after losing eligibility in good faith.
Cancel renewal. Keep using.
A company purchase gives the named company group permanent rights to existing official releases and those first published during an Update Term of at least twelve calendar months, excluding material outside the Licensor's authority identified before purchase. There are no seat, machine, application, or execution counts. Nonrenewal stops coverage of later official releases; covered releases and their permitted modifications remain usable. Growth does not reprice those acquired rights. No particular update or maintenance schedule is promised.
Hosted access follows the service period. Exporting software to operate it yourself requires your own applicable permission. See company purchases and hosted services.
Redistributing or hosting Bread-licensed software
You may share or sell Bread-licensed software without a royalty, publisher coverage tier, sales reporting, or product approval. Include the required source and notices, and explain that recipients need their own applicable permission. An existing company purchase may already cover the same releases in another application.
With the customer's authorization, a supplier may arrange an ordinary purchase naming the actual customer group. The upstream authorized seller accepts the order and issues confirmation directly to that customer. Coverage begins with upstream payment or an expressly accepted credit order identifying who owes payment. Payment to the supplier alone does not create coverage, and the supplier's own license cannot replace it.
An independent provider operating its own service uses its own permission. Customers need no separate permission merely to access it, including free plans, dedicated tenants, and services running their own programs or workflows. A browser client supplied for that provider-controlled service is included, even when it computes locally. A customer-controlled deployment uses the customer's permission, including when a supplier administers it. See the distribution rules and hosting rules. Separately licensed components retain their own obligations.
Sharing source, making forks, and keeping your own work
When distributing Bread-licensed software, give recipients a source copy they can keep, including your changes and the required build instructions. Independent application files can stay private. Hosting alone does not require you to publish private changes.
An existing upstream license covers distributed fork modifications within its scope, without another permission fee to the modifier. Upstream fees and coverage boundaries still apply.
Your independent outputs and extensions keep their own terms. No extra royalty arises merely because Bread-licensed software helped create them. See the source terms.
- Licensing your own software: read the adoption guide, including what you can change and how customers stay covered if you retire.
- Checking the exact terms: read the full license.
- Understanding the principles: read the Bread doctrine.
Bread's core idea is reciprocity. Payments buy permissions; voluntary support is separate. Free users owe no contribution, promotion, or eventual purchase.
The fictional adoption example includes an illustrative price schedule and grants no rights.
Jig maintains its own pricing, adoption notice and retained license, and contribution arrangements in its separate repository. They are not requirements for other Bread adopters.
You may freely copy, translate, adopt, adapt, and distribute the Bread license text and adoption materials, including commercially, without fees, membership, registration, or individual approval. This permission applies now.
Use the Bread License name and applicable version or draft identifier for the unchanged standard English text. Permitted adoption facts, commercial choices, and additional permissions expanding rights belong in separate notices or agreements. Formatting may change while preserving the text and its order. All other text changes require a distinct license name and an explanation of the changes; “based on Bread License [version]” is allowed. Translations may accompany the English text as labeled, non-authoritative explanations. The name policy defines these boundaries and makes no claim of trademark registration or endorsement of adaptations.
Before adopting Bread, ask a qualified lawyer to review how it fits your project and circumstances. The legal materials are supplied without a suitability warranty and with the text-reuse liability limits. Use public issues for wording feedback, not confidential facts or requests for legal advice. Discuss private matters with your own adviser.
Each adopter is responsible for its authority, commercial operations, and review of its actual arrangements. The reusable text does not relicense a product by itself or imply legal certification. Repository work follows AGENTS.md.