license.html

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layout: minizinc
title: MiniZinc - License
---

{% assign ideversion = site.data.version["ideversion"] %}
{% assign mznversion = site.data.version["mznversion"] %}

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                MiniZinc License Information
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            <h3>MiniZinc is Free and Open Source Software</h3>
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            <p>
                The core tools of MiniZinc, i.e., the MiniZinc compiler and the MiniZinc IDE,                
                are distributed under the <a href="LICENSE.txt">Mozilla Public License version 2.0</a>.
                This license is classified as <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MPL-2.0">open
                source</a> and <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#MPL-2.0">free
                software</a>.
            </p>
            <p>
                The Mozilla project maintains a <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/">useful
                FAQ about the Mozilla license</a>. In particular, the FAQ explains your obligations
                if you want to use the MiniZinc source code or binaries we provide, or re-distribute the binaries,
                or distribute binaries that you created from the MiniZinc source code.
            </p>
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            <h3>Third-party software in the MiniZinc binary distribution</h3>
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            <p>The MiniZinc binary distribution contains several pieces of software in addition to the
              MiniZinc compiler and IDE. These are distributed under the following licenses:
            </p>
            <ul>
              <li>
                  The MiniZinc IDE is developed using the <a href="http://qt-project.org">Qt toolkit</a>,
                  which is available under <a href="http://qt-project.org/products/licensing">several licenses
                  including the LGPL</a>. In the MiniZinc binary distributions, the MiniZinc IDE links against
                  the dynamic libraries provided by the Qt framework. You can therefore replace those Qt
                  libraries with your own version, as required by the LGPL. If you intend to re-distribute
                  the MiniZinc IDE in a setting where you cannot comply with the terms of the LGPL, you may have
                  to get a commercial license for Qt, or use MiniZinc without the IDE.
              </li>
              <li><b>Gecode:</b> The source code for the <a href="https://www.gecode.org">Gecode solver</a>
                is <a href="https://github.com/gecode/gecode">available from GitHub</a> under the
                <a href="https://www.gecode.org/license.html">MIT license</a>. In the MiniZinc binary distribution,
                Gecode is included as a stand-alone binary <tt>fzn-gecode</tt> (or <tt>fzn-gecode.exe</tt>, and statically linked
                as part of the MiniZinc compiler (<tt>minizinc</tt>). The binary <tt>fzn-gecode-gist</tt> (or <tt>fzn-gecode-gist.exe</tt>)
                additionally links against the Qt framework (see above), with the same licensing implications.
              </li>
              <li><b>Chuffed:</b> The source code for the Chuffed solver is
                <a href="https://github.com/chuffed/chuffed">available from GitHub</a> under the
                MIT license. In the MiniZinc binary distribution,
                Chuffed is included as a stand-alone binary <tt>fzn-chuffed</tt> (or <tt>fzn-chuffed.exe</tt>).
              </li>
              <li><b>COIN-OR CBC:</b> The source code for the COIN-OR branch and cut solver
                is <a href="https://github.com/coin-or/Cbc">available from GitHub</a> under the
                  Eclipse Public License 1.0. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, CBC is statically
                  linked into the MiniZinc compiler (<tt>minizinc</tt>).                  
              </li>
            </ul>
            <p>All open-source licenses above permit linking to and distributing binary versions
              of the software.
            </p>
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            <h3>MiniZinc documentation</h3>
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          <p>
            The source code for the MiniZinc documentation is <a href="https://github.com/minizinc/minizinc-doc">available from GitHub</a>.
            The source code and the documentation itself is available under the terms of the
            <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0)</a>
            license.
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