TYPO3’s Open Source Licenses

The TYPO3 project, represented by the TYPO3 Association, uses different licenses for

• the distribution of software and documentation, and

• contributions from individuals and corporations.

We chose to use those licenses because they share the values of the TYPO3 project:
Inspiring People to Share and To Jointly Innovate Excellent Free Software Enabling People to Communicate.

• TYPO3 CMS 3.x and higher is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.
• TYPO3 Fluid is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or later.
• TYPO3 Surf is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later.

Among other things, this means:

• Your extensions fall under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later, because our software is released under that license.
• You are allowed to sell the extension, as long as you do not change the license terms.
• Your customer is allowed to do anything with the extension, as long as it does not violate the terms of the license, including uploading it to the public TYPO3 Extension Repository.
• You are not forced to share your extension, but it should inspire you to do so. Legally you cannot prevent anyone who gets hold of your extension code from using it and further develop it.

For more information, please see the GPL FAQ at gnu.org, specifically these two entries:

• If I write a plug-in to use with a GPL-covered program, what requirements does that impose on the licenses I can use for distributing my plug-in?
• When is a program and its plug-ins considered a single combined program?

If you have any questions about TYPO3 software licensing or contributions to the TYPO3 project, please get in touch with us.

Under a budget from the TYPO3 Association, the licensing team investigates the licenses we use. This project aims to clarify the current state and the advantages and disadvantages of the licenses used by the different TYPO3 projects and contexts.

Please feel free to join the project.