Non-Commercial use is where an individual uses the software (as opposed to a business) and nobody directly or indirectly receives any form of compensation as a result of that use.
Use as part of any trade, business or profession, or any other use for which you directly or indirectly receive compensation such as building your own software or any other product for sale, or doing the same for a company that employs you, is not permitted.
Examples of Non-Commercial Use
The following list, which is not exhaustive, gives examples of usage that would come within the definition of Non-Commercial use:
- Use for Educational purposes, for example teaching students how to build computer software, where the student is not paying for that education and the resulting software is not to be offered in exchange for any type of reward. This means that use by any state school would be within the license, but use by a public school would not.
- Use for hobby purposes, for example learning to build computer software where there is no charge for the use of the resulting software or for supporting that software
- Use for Open Source software purposes, where there is no charge for the use of the resulting software or for supporting that software
- Use for Charitable purposes by unpaid volunteers where there is no commercial element to the result of that use
Examples of Commercial Use
The following list, which is again not exhaustive, gives examples of usage that would be considered commercial and would require a Commercial or Pro license:
- Use as part of the gainful employment of the user
- Use for creating software that has both free and paid versions
- Where use by a Charity results in income generated for that charity
- Where more than one copy of the software is used
- Where more than one developer is working on a project
- Where the computer in use is joined to a Domain
- Use where the user is offering a paid support service, including use in providing Technical Support for computers or other devices that use software of any type. This means that an individual running any form of IT service would be commercial use.
- Use for Educational purposes where the educational establishment is paid by the student. This means that Universities and Public Schools would need a commercial license to use the software.
- Where other paid for commercially licensed tools are being used by the same user. For example, using paid for editions of Microsoft Visual Studio Professional, Resharper, Advanced Installer, or any other paid for development software would clearly indicate commercial use.
- Where a headless server is being used to run the software as this type of hardware is normally only used by commercial organisations
If you are in any doubt whether a particular use constitutes commercial use, please contact us for advice and clarification.
