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Concepts

The Lnav Licensing Model: Clear, Consistent, and Built for Engineers

Andrios Robert

• 1 min read

The license defines the limits. With Lnav, those limits are clear, direct, and built to match how engineers actually work. The Lnav licensing model is designed for transparency, predictable costs, and zero surprises. No hidden tiers. No opaque upgrade rules. You get exactly what the license says, and the license says a lot with very few words.

Lnav offers two core options: the open-source license under the BSD 2-Clause terms, and a commercial license for organizations needing official support, custom features, or redistribution rights. The BSD license grants full access to the source code, allowing modification, integration, and redistribution as long as copyright notices remain. For teams that require certified builds, priority bug fixes, or indemnification, the commercial model unlocks those benefits through a direct agreement with the Lnav maintainers.

This dual licensing structure keeps the project accessible for individual developers while giving companies a clear path to meet corporate compliance and procurement requirements. It avoids the confusion found in projects that change license terms midstream. If you start on BSD, you keep BSD. If you sign a commercial contract, your rights and obligations are clear on day one.

Key advantages of the Lnav licensing model include:

  • Full source code access under BSD for maximum flexibility.
  • A commercial option for enterprise-grade support and legal assurance.
  • No feature gating between versions; all functionality is available in both licenses.
  • Simple compliance rules, with no per-seat counts or tracking mechanisms.

This clarity helps teams plan long-term adoption without fearing an abrupt shift in terms. It also reduces legal review cycles, since the BSD license is already well understood by most legal departments. For engineers maintaining CI/CD pipelines, it means fewer supply chain risks and faster integration with tooling.

When evaluating tools for production environments, licensing is as critical as performance. The Lnav licensing model delivers both stability and choice. Pick BSD for open-source freedom. Choose commercial for enterprise needs. Either way, the terms stay consistent and the path forward stays open.

Want to see Lnav in action with zero setup pain? Launch it live in minutes on hoop.dev and test the model yourself.