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Licensing / Commercial licensing

Commercial licensing

NEXT HMI is free and open-source software under AGPL-3.0. Most users need nothing else: a factory that self-hosts an unmodified build owes nothing and pays nothing, forever.

This document is for the cases where the AGPL is not the right fit, and for the enterprise module. It describes how to buy and who each option is for — it is not the licence text. The commercial licence terms are hosted at https://next-hmi.com/license/commercial.

When the AGPL is enough

If you run NEXT HMI as-is — even in production, even commercially, even serving many operators — the AGPL asks nothing of you. Its obligations only begin when you redistribute a build or serve a modified build over a network: in those cases AGPL-3.0 requires you to offer your recipients (or your network users, under §13) the complete corresponding source of what you shipped or served.

The AGPL does not require anyone to pay. A commercial licence is the alternative to complying with that source-disclosure obligation — not a fee the licence imposes.

Commercial redistribution licence

For organisations that redistribute NEXT HMI and cannot, or prefer not to, meet the AGPL's source-disclosure terms:

  • Who it is for — machine builders and OEMs that embed NEXT HMI in shipped equipment, system integrators that deliver modified builds to clients, and SaaS vendors that offer a modified NEXT HMI as a network service.
  • What it grants — the right to redistribute and network-serve NEXT HMI without the AGPL copyleft obligation, and the right to replace the open-source build's product branding with your own (white-label). That branding is the logo and AGPL-3.0 attribution notice the HMI boot screen shows on every load of the runtime, for a minimum of two seconds; the shell.attribution project setting hides or replaces it. The setting is plain configuration — nothing in the build verifies a licence — so changing it, or shortening the two seconds, without this licence is a licence violation rather than something the software prevents.
  • Shape — priced per shipped unit, sold as prepaid blocks. Small volumes are self-service; larger volumes go through a named contact. Enforced by contract, not by any runtime check — the open-source build contains no licence check at all.

Signed installers, support, and liability

Available to everyone, including AGPL users who never redistribute:

  • Code-signed Windows and macOS installers issued under a verified legal entity — useful where plant IT forbids unsigned binaries.
  • Commissioning help, priority support, and a real invoice with a support SLA.

Signed release binaries are provided free of charge for all users; this option adds a support relationship and a contractual counterparty, not a different binary.

Enterprise module subscription

An enterprise edition adds a compliance audit trail for regulated plants that need a tamper-evident record of operator actions. It ships as a separate signed build with its own per-device licence key, under the commercial licence rather than the AGPL, and its code is not part of this repository.

  • Who it is for — plants under regulatory audit requirements.
  • What it is — the open-source core plus the audit-trail module in one build; the licence key enables the module.

Bundled LGPL components

NEXT HMI depends on two libraries under the GNU Lesser General Public License — asyncua (OPC-UA client, LGPL-3.0-or-later) and zeroconf (LAN peer discovery, LGPL-2.1-or-later) — used unmodified. This matters to commercial licensees, who do not receive the AGPL's automatic source provision:

  • Source installs import both from site-packages, where they remain independently replaceable.
  • Binary distributions (portable and Docker builds) ship them as loose, replaceable package directories under lgpl/ beside the executable rather than frozen inside it, so a recipient can substitute their own build — the arrangement the LGPL requires for a combined work. The full licence texts travel with the build (LICENSE-LGPL-3.0.txt, LICENSE-GPL-3.0.txt, LICENSE-LGPL-2.1.txt) and are also in this repository.

Written offer for source. The complete corresponding source for these libraries is published by their maintainers:

The lgpl/ directories in a release are themselves the complete corresponding source for the exact versions shipped; on request we also provide them directly (mailto:source@next-hmi.com).

How to buy

Pricing for every option is published at https://next-hmi.com/license/commercial — there is no "contact us to find out the price" step for the self-service tier.