Starting with build 33 of COPASI, the software will be distributed under the Artistic License 2.0, an approved open source license.

COPASI License changes to Artistic License 2.0

Starting with build 33 of COPASI (version 4.6.33), the software will be distributed under the Artistic License 2.0 for all uses of the software without a fee. The Artistic License 2.0, is an OSI approved open source license, which will allow everyone to use future releases of COPASI free of charge and with more freedom of distribution.

This change in license will bring a number of benefits, for example:

1. COPASI can now include software libraries that are released under licenses that were previously incompatible with COPASI’s.
2. 3rd parties will be able to distribute unmodified versions of COPASI
3. 3rd parties will be able to develop software packages based on COPASI and distribute them under a small number of restrictions (designed to protect the COPASI brand).
4. 3rd parties will be able to provide services based on COPASI.

The first point will allow us, the COPASI team to enhance quality and functionality of COPASI more easily since a lot of academic software is released under licenses which are incompatible with the previous licensing scheme. The second point allows COPASI to be included in other software bundles, such as Linux distributions. The last two points will benefit other academic teams which are now able to make use of COPASI within their software projects and distribute the results freely .

What does this mean to current COPASI users?

• If you are a user of COPASI under the non-commercial license, you can continue using COPASI exactly as before.
• If you are a user of COPASI under the commercial license, you are no longer required to pay for upgrades of COPASI. You are free to use COPASI under the same license as everyone else. All future versions of COPASI will be entirely free to be used in commercial settings.

We would like this opportunity to thank all of our previous commercial licensee’s which have provided us a strong vote of confidence and much needed validation that our software is indeed useful in all settings and that it is competitive with other offerings, including commercial ones.

We hope that the new licensing scheme of COPASI will expand the user base of COPASI and the range of applications.

The COPASI development team.