Distribution
If you distribute a modified version, understand the notice and source obligations before release.
Licensing · Community
Open source, with obligations
The Community Edition is released under the Open Software License 3.0. The canonical text governs; this page explains the shape of the agreement.
Summary
What OSL 3.0 generally provides
The licence grants rights to use, reproduce, modify and distribute the original work, subject to the conditions in the canonical text. It is an OSI approved licence, which means it meets the open source definition published by the Open Source Initiative.
Distribution of modified versions carries obligations. The precise scope depends on how the work is used and distributed. Read the licence and take qualified legal advice for a commercial deployment.
No warranty
As with most open source licences, the work is provided without warranty. The risk of use sits with the user.
Not legal advice
This page is a product site summary, not a legal opinion. The signed or published licence text prevails.
Practical notes
What teams usually check
Hosted use
A hosted service and a distributed product can trigger different obligations. Ask for advice on the actual model.
Third party code
Check the licences of dependencies you add. The Community licence does not change their terms.
Primary sources
Licence and platform references
Standards, documentation and tools that are relevant to this topic. They open on the publisher's site.
- Open Software License 3.0 The license used by the Community Edition.
- Open Source Initiative License review and the open source definition.
- .NET platform Runtime, tooling and framework documentation from Microsoft.
- NuGet Package distribution used by the .NET client and samples.
- SQL Server Database engine documentation and editions.
- W3C Web standards for markup, accessibility and internationalization.
- OWASP Application security guidance and cheat sheets.
- GDPR text The EU data protection regulation on EUR Lex.
- Microsoft Learn Reference material for the Microsoft development stack.
- GitHub Source hosting and issue tracking for .NET projects.
Next step
Need the commercial terms instead?
Professional and Enterprise use a separate agreement with capacity, support and contract terms.