Simple Machines Forum - SMF and Free Software

SMF and Free Software

Previously, SMF was occasionally criticized for not being available under a free software license; the developers acknowledge this. Redistribution of the software, even unmodified, was not allowed without written permission. The source code was not redistributable either, although it was allowed to distribute instructions on how to modify it. The official response was:

Sometimes people ask us: "Why do you care that people are redistributing it?" and the reason is that although we believe in giving back to the Open Source community, we also believe that the volunteers that make up this project deserve the credit. On top of that, allowing unlimited redistribution encourages project forking and could lead to confusion about what versions are supported. —Simple Machines LLC

However, as of June 11, 2011, Simple Machines version 2.0 and later are now licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.