License

Pengin-Pi-3 is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3.

The full text is in LICENSE at the repository root.

What that means in practice

GPLv3 is a copyleft license. You may use, study, modify, and redistribute the software. The condition is that derivative works you distribute carry the same license and ship their source.

You can

• Run it for any purpose, commercial included
• Build client sites and internal tools on it
• Modify it however you need
• Distribute it, modified or not

If you distribute, you must

• Release your modified source under GPLv3
• Include the license text and preserve copyright notices
• State what you changed
• Pass the same freedoms on to whoever receives it

Running it is not distributing

This is the distinction that matters most for a web platform.

Operating a public website built on Pengin-Pi-3 is not distribution. GPLv3 obligations attach when you convey the software to someone else — hand them a copy, ship them an appliance, publish a fork. Visitors to a site you run receive HTML, not software.

So a client site built on this platform does not have to publish its source. Neither does an internal deployment.

GPLv3 has no network clause. If you want one, that is the AGPL, and this project is not under it.

Where it does bite

• Forking and publishing — your fork is GPLv3, source included
• Shipping it to a client as software — a self-hosted appliance, a VM image, a repository you hand over — is distribution, and the client gets the source and the same rights
• Bundling it into a product you sell — same, and the combined work is generally GPLv3

Delivering a hosted service you operate is the ordinary case and carries no source obligation. Delivering software the client runs themselves does.

Contributions

Contributions are accepted under GPLv3. Submitting a patch means you agree it can be distributed under that license and that you have the right to submit it.

There is currently no CLA and no copyright assignment — contributors keep their own copyright. See Contributing.

Dependencies

The platform is built on third-party packages under their own licenses — Django (BSD-3-Clause), the Bootstrap front end (MIT), and the rest of requirements.txt. GPLv3 covers Pengin-Pi-3's own code, not its dependencies, and those keep their original terms.

If you redistribute a full deployment, the obligations of every bundled package apply alongside this one.

Application branches

Branches on the public mirror carrying application modules are covered by this license like everything else in the repository. They are, separately, outside the supported surface and carry no maintenance commitment — see Info.

Not legal advice

This page summarizes GPLv3 for orientation. The license text in LICENSE is what governs, and it wins over anything written here. For a specific situation — redistribution, a commercial product, a client deliverable — consult a lawyer.

Licensing questions about the project itself can go to support@tobupengin.com.

Next

• Contributing — how to submit changes
• Code of Conduct — conduct expectations
• Info — project overview