Beerware

For glasses for beer, see beer glassware.

Beerware is a tongue-in-cheek software license with permissive terms, which grants the right to do anything with the source code, assuming the license notice is preserved.^[3]

Beerware

Author	Poul-Henning Kamp
Latest version	42
Publisher	Yes
Published	1998[a]
SPDX identifier	Beerware
Debian FSG compatible	Yes
FSF approved	Yes (see "informal license" section)[2]
OSI approved	No
GPL compatible	Yes[2]
Copyleft	No[2]
Linking from code with a different licence	Yes

Description

Should the user of the code consider the software useful, they are encouraged to buy the author a beer "in return" if they ever meet. The Humanitarian-FOSS project at Trinity College recognized the "version 42" beerware license variant as an extremely permissive "copyright only" and GPL-compatible license.^[3] According to the Free Software Foundation the license would be classified as an "informal" free, non-copyleft and GPL-compatible license, however more detailed licenses are recommended.^[2]

Poul-Henning Kamp states preference of his Beerware license to other licenses, such as BSD and GPL, the latter of which he has described as a "joke".^[4] The full text of Kamp's license is:^[5]

"THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42): <[e-mail]> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return. Poul-Henning Kamp.

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• 0BSD a public domain equivalent license used by Toybox and explicitly allowed for Android
• Anti-copyright license
• Careware
• Comparison of free and open-source software licenses
• Donationware
• WTFPL

Notes

1. According to the Wayback Machine, the earliest revision of Poul-Henning Kamp's website containing the license is 1998. It is unknown whether this was indeed the first year of the license's publication.^[1]