What AGPL means for a machine you sell.

This is a plain-language explanation, not legal advice — read it to understand the shape of the question, and get your own counsel's sign-off before it goes into a contract. That said, the mechanism below is real and it's the same one COMMERCIAL.md in the repository states in full, section references included.

The one question that matters

Are you handing a copy of NEXT HMI — or a modified version of it — to someone outside your own organisation, or running a modified version as a network service for them? If the honest answer is no, nothing below applies to you, and you owe nothing under any licence. That covers most of the people reading this: a factory that installs NEXT HMI on its own server for its own operators, unmodified, triggers no obligation at all. It's the majority use case, and it's meant to be.

When the obligation actually starts

For a machine builder, the trigger is easy to picture. You build a panel PC with NEXT HMI on it and sell it to a customer. That's distribution; the licence calls it conveying. From that moment you must make the complete source of what you shipped available to that customer, including any changes you made. This applies even if you changed nothing.

There's a second, rarer trigger, and it's what sets the AGPL apart from the ordinary GPL. If you modify NEXT HMI and let people use your modified version over a network, you must offer them the source too.

Neither trigger costs money. Both are obligations to share code, and you can meet them directly by publishing your version or handing the customer a copy with the machine.

Distribution is covered by section 6 of the AGPL-3.0, and network use of a modified version by section 13.

What the licence does not reach

Your project files — pages, themes, translations, datasource configurations, the widget library you've built up over ten projects — are not a derivative work of the platform. That's stated explicitly in LICENSE-EXCEPTION.md rather than left for a court to decide later: the copyleft reaches forks of NEXT HMI itself, not the projects built on top of it. You can keep every one of those files as private, unpublished, commercially confidential work, whether or not you ever touch the redistribution licence.

The boot notice — the one thing the open build always shows

The open-source build shows a notice on boot: the product name, the fact that it's licensed under the AGPL-3.0, and where to get the source. It appears once per session, for at least two seconds. We attach it as an additional term, using the room the licence gives for legal notices (GPL-3.0 §7(b)). The notice asks for no royalties, doesn't touch your project files and doesn't limit what you charge your customer. It just says, once, what the software is.

Where €149 fits

The redistribution licence isn't a fee the AGPL imposes. Sharing source is free, and meeting the licence that way is a perfectly good choice. The €149 licence is the alternative for when sharing doesn't fit. Maybe your company's policy won't accept AGPL software in a product, which is a common position, or a customer contract rules it out. The licence also gives you two things some IT departments require: your own branding instead of the boot notice, and a code-signed build. It costs €149 once per device, less than an hour with licensing counsel. When you need it, buying it should be an easy decision. When you don't need it, it's simply unnecessary.

What it doesn't buy

No response-time commitment, no SLA, no installation or commissioning, no bugfix guarantee, no custom development. It's a licence for rights and delivery — white-label, release from the source obligation, a signed key — not a support contract. See Pricing for the full terms, or Support for what happens to a machine if the arrangement around it ever changes.

The short version, for whoever you forward this to

• Running it unmodified in your own plant: no obligation.
• Running a modified version in your own plant: offer the source to the people who use it.
• Shipping a device to a customer, modified or not: share the source with them, or pay €149 once instead.
• Your project files (screens, themes, widgets): always yours, never covered by the copyleft.
• The one thing the free build always does: show its name and licence once on boot.