PolyForm Noncommercial allows non-commercial use only. Source is readable. This is not OSI open source. Paid products need a separate grant.
On this page
What it does
PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 is a source-available software grant. You may use, change and share the software for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use is outside the grant. Contrast PolyForm Small Business, which allows small-company commercial use. Do not list this next to MIT in a buyer pack as if they were the same family.
Pros
- Clear reuse for non-commercial sharing, teaching, and internal evaluation.
- Attribution rules are written down. You know what credit to keep.
Cons
- A paid product cannot rely on this grant. You need a separate license from the rightsholder.
- What counts as commercial is a counsel question at the edges (sponsorship, dual-use, in-product ads).
What it allows and requires
Choose a category to see the full grant in one scannable list. Permissions show what the license allows, limits show what it withholds, and obligations show the conditions your release process must satisfy.
Permissions
Private use
Use inside your company, including internal forks, does not by itself trigger distribution duties.
Modify
You can usually read and change the source. Production use after the change date, or in a competing service, is where these licenses bite.
Limits
Hold liable
The authors disclaim warranty. Recipients cannot hold them liable for damages arising from the software, except where law forbids that disclaimer.
Commercial use
Non-commercial source-available grants do not allow a paid product, ads, or other commercial advantage. A separate commercial license is the usual path.
Obligations
Include license
Keep the license text with the source you received.
What PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 requires when you ship
PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 is readable source with use limits. The work is to match your use to the written grant, then keep the text on the record so procurement can read it. Do not treat a source-available identifier as OSI-style open source because the code is on GitHub.
You stay inside PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 when use is not commercial. A paid product, ads, or other commercial advantage sits outside the grant.
You give the credit the license asks for when you share the work.
You keep a record of the SPDX id and the license text on the component, even when the work never ships in a binary.
The duties named in PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0
The written grant is the source of the limits. These rows are the usual conditions teams have to match against their actual use, then keep on the record.
Include license
Keep the license text with the source you received.
Things to be aware of
- Shipping the work inside a paid app because 'it is Creative Commons.' CC-BY-NC is not a software OSS grant.
- Dropping attribution on a cropped image or a derived dataset. The credit follows adaptations you share.
What the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 does not do
Search results often flatten PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 into a slogan. These are the usual misreads. PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 is a grant with conditions, not a permission to skip the paperwork below.
- PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 does not allow commercial use. That is the point of the NonCommercial clause.
- PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 is not an OSI-approved open source software license. Treat it as a content or data grant with a use limit.
How PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 differs from nearby licenses
These licenses are often confused with PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0, but their release duties differ. Each row summarizes what the license requires when you ship. Open the linked page for the full checklist.
- PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0
- PolyForm Noncommercial allows non-commercial use only. Source is readable. This is not OSI open source. Paid products need a separate grant.
- PolyForm-Small-Business-1.0.0
- PolyForm Small Business allows commercial use only under the employee-count cap in the text. Larger companies need a separate license.
- CC-BY-NC-4.0
- Free for non-commercial purposes only. In a paid or ad-supported product the grant does not reach you, whatever the download page said.
- source-available
- You can read the code. That is not the same as permission to use it any way you like. Source available is not open source.
Common questions about PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0
Answers to common questions about what PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 requires, when its duties apply, and what evidence belongs with a release.
What is the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0?
PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 is a source-available software grant. You may use, change and share the software for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use is outside the grant. Contrast PolyForm Small Business, which allows small-company commercial use. Do not list this next to MIT in a buyer pack as if they were the same family.
What does PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 require when you ship a product?
You stay inside PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 when use is not commercial. A paid product, ads, or other commercial advantage sits outside the grant. You give the credit the license asks for when you share the work. You keep a record of the SPDX id and the license text on the component, even when the work never ships in a binary.
Is PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 open source?
Not in the OSI sense. PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 is source-available: you can read the code, but the grant restricts how you may use it. Read the actual text.
How is PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 different from PolyForm Small Business 1.0.0?
PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 asks this: PolyForm Noncommercial allows non-commercial use only. Source is readable. This is not OSI open source. Paid products need a separate grant. PolyForm Small Business 1.0.0 asks this: PolyForm Small Business allows commercial use only under the employee-count cap in the text. Larger companies need a separate license. Open the PolyForm Small Business 1.0.0 page for what that license requires when you ship. Do not treat the SPDX ids as interchangeable because the short names look similar.
Where do I record PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 for a buyer?
PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 carries a NonCommercial limit in the catalog. The identifier still needs license text on the record before the component can go live. SourceTrust fetches and compares the published artifact against the declared SPDX id. A person on your team still has to confirm the identifier. The stored text is what your page and each export file carry.
Where do I record PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 for a buyer?
PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 carries a NonCommercial limit in the catalog. The identifier still needs license text on the record before the component can go live.
SourceTrust fetches and compares the published artifact against the declared SPDX id. A person on your team still has to confirm the identifier.
The stored text is what your page and each export file carry. Read /docs/auto-fetch-license.
See also
The hub is the pillar for this cluster. Sibling licenses are the other spokes. Product FAQ links explain how SourceTrust records the duty, not the license text itself.
Practical guidance for procurement review, not legal advice. Confirm high-stakes use with counsel.