Hi, I can't work out from LICENSE.md whether my use case needs a commercial license.
I'm building a mobile app (iOS/Android) that bundles the extension and runs fully on-device. No hosting, no service, nothing exposed to third parties. The app is closed-source.
My understanding of the Elastic License is that only hosted use, where third parties get direct access to the library itself, is prohibited. So where is the line drawn here?
The preamble says:
You may not use this file except in compliance with the Elastic License 2.0 and the conditions outlined here.
So the conditions below are binding, not just extra permissions. And one of them is:
For non–open-source or commercial production use, you may use, copy, distribute, and prepare derivative works of the software only with a commercial license from SQLite Cloud, Inc.
Read together, that suggests any closed-source production use needs a commercial license, even though the section is headed "In addition to the permissions granted under the Elastic License 2.0" and ELv2 on its own would allow embedded distribution. The README also describes ELv2 as covering "non-production use", which doesn't match ELv2's actual terms and adds to the confusion.
Two concrete questions:
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Does embedding sqlite-vector in a closed-source client app, running locally on the user's device with no hosted component, require a commercial license?
-
The number of embeddings I need to store and query is fairly large, so I was also considering running the search server-side instead. Users would hit my own API and never get access to the extension itself. Is that prohibited? I assume this one is closer to the line, so I'd rather ask than guess.
If either needs a commercial license, how is it obtained? I don't see it on the pricing page, which only covers SQLite Cloud and CloudSync plans.
Thank you in advance!
Hi, I can't work out from LICENSE.md whether my use case needs a commercial license.
I'm building a mobile app (iOS/Android) that bundles the extension and runs fully on-device. No hosting, no service, nothing exposed to third parties. The app is closed-source.
My understanding of the Elastic License is that only hosted use, where third parties get direct access to the library itself, is prohibited. So where is the line drawn here?
The preamble says:
So the conditions below are binding, not just extra permissions. And one of them is:
Read together, that suggests any closed-source production use needs a commercial license, even though the section is headed "In addition to the permissions granted under the Elastic License 2.0" and ELv2 on its own would allow embedded distribution. The README also describes ELv2 as covering "non-production use", which doesn't match ELv2's actual terms and adds to the confusion.
Two concrete questions:
Does embedding sqlite-vector in a closed-source client app, running locally on the user's device with no hosted component, require a commercial license?
The number of embeddings I need to store and query is fairly large, so I was also considering running the search server-side instead. Users would hit my own API and never get access to the extension itself. Is that prohibited? I assume this one is closer to the line, so I'd rather ask than guess.
If either needs a commercial license, how is it obtained? I don't see it on the pricing page, which only covers SQLite Cloud and CloudSync plans.
Thank you in advance!