Licensing
Built to be commercially usable
A plain-language summary of how Open Terrain Engine will be licensed. This is informational only and not legal advice.
Source-available / Fair Source — not open source
Open Terrain Engine is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 (BUSL-1.1). The source is available to read and modify, but it is not an OSI open-source license. We describe it as source-available / Fair Source.
Free for most production use
The intent is Unreal-style economics: free to use in production under a per-title revenue threshold, with a commercial license above it. Exact thresholds and rates will be published with the final terms.
Each version eventually opens
Under BSL 1.1, every released version converts to an open-source license (Apache-2.0) after its change date. The current, supported version remains commercially licensed.
Permissive dependencies only
The engine's dependency tree is kept permissive (MIT / Apache-2.0 / BSD / Zlib / public-domain) with zero copyleft, enforced in CI — so adopting it doesn't pull copyleft obligations into your game.
Subject to final terms. The license grant and commercial agreement are still being finalized with counsel. Nothing here is binding; the published license text will govern. Questions? hello@openterrain.studio.