[Qgis-user] QGIS Licensing in Production Development

[chris hermansen]

Mustafa and list,

On Mon, Dec 8, 2025, 19:20 Mustafa Cayci via QGIS-User <
qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Dear QGIS Team,
>

This is the QGIS user mailing list and we are a team only insofar as we
share an interest in this wonderful piece of open source software.


> I am planning to build a commercial solution for my customers that uses
> QGIS together with an object detection model (YOLO). The idea is to:
>
> Use QGIS as the main GIS platform / interface,
> Integrate or call a YOLO-based object detection workflow (e.g., as a
> plugin, script, or external service),
> Package this as a solution that I sell to my customers (either as a
> service or as software they install).
>
> I would be grateful if you could clarify the following points:
>
> Licensing and redistribution
>
> QGIS is licensed under the GPL. Under what conditions may I bundle QGIS
> with my own code and distribute it as part of a commercial offering?
>

This is all made pretty clear in the GPL document. You should review that
document which will answer this question for you.

Asking for free help to enable you to build your non free product is a bit
presumptuous.


If I write a QGIS plugin that uses YOLO (for example, a Python plugin
> calling external inference code or a remote API), does this plugin also
> need to be GPL-licensed, or can it be under a different license?
> Are there specific requirements for how I should provide source code,
> notices, or license information when distributing QGIS together with my own
> software?
>
> Commercial use and charging customers
>
> Am I allowed to charge customers for installation, customization,
> training, and ongoing support of a QGIS-based solution that includes my own
> YOLO-based object detection tools?
>

If you can convince people to pay you to help them with their QGIS
configuration and use, then what would stop you?

If you are successful in this endeavour perhaps at some future time you
might consider contributing back to the development and support of QGIS.
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