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ReferenceLicensing

Licensing

rbee uses a mixed licensing model designed to keep the core system free and open source while offering premium modules for production use cases.

Overview

rbee’s licensing strategy balances open source principles with sustainable business model:

  • Open core - Base system is free forever under permissive licenses
  • Premium modules - Production-grade features sold as one-time lifetime licenses
  • No subscriptions - Pay once, use forever
  • No feature limits - Free version is fully functional, not crippled

Open source components

The following components are open source and free to use:

GPL-3.0-or-later

These components are licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0 or later:

  • queen-rbee - The orchestrator
  • rbee-hive - The worker host daemon
  • rbee-keeper - The GUI application (Tauri frontend)

What this means:

  • Free to use for any purpose
  • Free to modify and distribute
  • If you distribute modified versions, you must share source code under GPL-3.0
  • Commercial use is allowed

Why GPL-3.0: These are the “system” components that benefit from strong copyleft protection, ensuring improvements remain open source.

MIT License

These components are licensed under MIT License:

  • Shared libraries - Common Rust crates used across components
  • Worker implementations - LLM workers (current), multi-modal workers planned (M3)
  • Configuration schemas - TOML/JSON configuration formats

What this means:

  • Free to use for any purpose
  • Free to modify and distribute
  • No requirement to share modifications
  • Can be integrated into proprietary software
  • Commercial use is allowed

Why MIT: These are library components that benefit from maximum permissiveness, encouraging adoption and integration.

Premium modules

Note: Premium modules are planned for M2 launch (target Q2 2026). Details shown are the planned structure.

Premium modules are proprietary software sold as one-time lifetime licenses. They add production-grade features for businesses running rbee as a product.

Premium Queen

License: Proprietary, lifetime license
Price: €129 (standalone)

Features:

  • Advanced routing (weighted least-loaded, latency-aware)
  • Quota management (per-customer, per-tier)
  • Rate limiting and throttling
  • Automatic failover and retry logic
  • Detailed telemetry and metrics export
  • Multi-tenancy support
  • API key management

Who needs this:

  • GPU providers building API platforms
  • Businesses offering AI services to customers
  • Teams needing production-grade reliability

Premium Worker

License: Proprietary, lifetime license
Price: €179 (bundle-only - NOT sold standalone)

Important: Premium Worker requires Premium Queen for telemetry processing and is only available in bundles.

Features:

  • Advanced batching and scheduling
  • Resource usage tracking (per-request metrics)
  • Custom model loading strategies
  • Priority queue support
  • Detailed performance metrics
  • Memory optimization features

Who needs this:

  • High-throughput inference workloads
  • Cost-sensitive deployments
  • Performance optimization scenarios

GDPR Auditing Module

License: Proprietary, lifetime license
Price: €249 (standalone)

Features:

  • Complete audit trail of all requests
  • Data lineage tracking
  • Automated compliance reports
  • Right-to-erasure support
  • PII detection and handling
  • 7-year log retention (GDPR requirement)

Who needs this:

  • Academic institutions handling sensitive data
  • Medical research organizations
  • EU-based businesses with GDPR obligations
  • Government agencies

Premium Bundles

License: Proprietary, lifetime licenses

  • Queen + Worker: €279 (⭐ MOST POPULAR)
  • Queen + Audit: €349
  • Complete Bundle: €499 (⭐⭐ BEST VALUE - all three modules)

Bundles provide discounts compared to purchasing modules separately.

Licensing FAQ

Can I use rbee commercially?

Yes. Both GPL-3.0 and MIT licenses allow commercial use. You can:

  • Use rbee to run your business
  • Offer AI services using rbee
  • Charge customers for API access
  • Deploy rbee in production

Do I need premium modules?

For personal use: No. The open source version is fully functional.

For business use: It depends:

  • Small scale (< 10 customers, < 5 GPUs): Open source is fine
  • Medium scale (10-100 customers, 5-20 GPUs): Premium Queen recommended
  • Large scale (100+ customers, 20+ GPUs): Premium Bundle recommended
  • GDPR compliance needed: GDPR Auditing Module required

What happens if I modify GPL-3.0 components?

If you modify GPL-3.0 components (queen, hive, keeper) and distribute them:

  • You must share your modifications under GPL-3.0
  • You must provide source code to recipients
  • You can charge for your distribution

If you only use rbee internally (not distributing):

  • No requirement to share modifications
  • You can keep changes private

Can I integrate rbee into my proprietary software?

Yes, with conditions:

  • MIT components (workers, libraries): Yes, freely
  • GPL-3.0 components (queen, hive, keeper): Only if your software is also GPL-3.0, or if you use rbee as a separate service (not linked into your code)

Recommended approach: Use rbee as a separate service (microservice architecture). Your proprietary app talks to rbee via HTTP API. This avoids GPL-3.0 requirements.

Are premium modules subscriptions?

No. Premium modules are one-time lifetime licenses:

  • Pay once, use forever
  • No recurring fees
  • Free updates for the major version you purchased
  • Includes bug fixes and security patches

What’s included in “lifetime”?

  • Lifetime of the product - As long as rbee exists
  • All minor updates - e.g., v1.0 → v1.1 → v1.9
  • Major version upgrades - Discounted upgrade path to v2.0, v3.0, etc.

Can I transfer my premium license?

Yes. Premium licenses can be transferred:

  • Between your own servers (unlimited)
  • To another person/company (one-time transfer fee: €50)

Do I need a license per server?

No. Premium licenses are per-colony, not per-server:

  • One Premium Queen license covers one queen instance
  • One Premium Worker license covers unlimited workers in that colony
  • One GDPR Auditing license covers one queen instance

Example:

  • 1 queen + 10 hives + 50 workers = 1 Premium Bundle license

What if I can’t afford premium modules?

Options:

  1. Use open source version - Fully functional, no limits
  2. Academic/research discount - 50% off for educational institutions
  3. Open source contributor discount - 30% off if you contribute to rbee
  4. Startup program - Free Premium Bundle for first year (apply via email)

How do I purchase premium modules?

Pre-launch (current):

  • Email: sales@rbee.dev
  • Include: use case, number of GPUs, expected scale
  • Payment: Bank transfer or crypto

Post-launch:

  • Purchase directly from rbee.dev/pricing
  • Instant license key delivery
  • Payment: Credit card, PayPal, bank transfer, crypto

Can I try premium modules before buying?

Yes. 30-day free trial available:

  • Email: sales@rbee.dev with “Trial Request”
  • Receive trial license key
  • Full features, no credit card required
  • Convert to paid license anytime during trial

License compliance

For users

Open source components:

  • No registration required
  • No telemetry or phone-home
  • Use freely

Premium modules:

  • License key required
  • Online activation (one-time)
  • Offline mode available after activation
  • No telemetry unless explicitly enabled

For contributors

If you contribute code to rbee:

  • Contributions to GPL-3.0 components must be GPL-3.0
  • Contributions to MIT components must be MIT
  • You retain copyright to your contributions
  • You grant rbee project perpetual license to use your code

Next steps

Performance TuningPremium Modules
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