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Can you consider "Unity Personal" as a free software?

Discussion in 'Editor & General Support' started by scarxd22, Jun 21, 2019.

  1. scarxd22

    scarxd22

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2019
    Posts:
    1
    Greetings to the entire Unity community.
    I have an urgent question. I am using "Unity Personal" for a project at the University and I need to know if I can consider "Unity Personal" as a free software.

    Please, tell me yes.

    I need a precise answer.
     
  2. dgoyette

    dgoyette

    Joined:
    Jul 1, 2016
    Posts:
    4,196
    Depends on your definition. "Free" often has two meanings when it comes to software.

    The most common meaning is whether it costs money to use. As long as you're making under $100,000 per year, you should be able to use Unity without paying anything. There's also some special rules about Unity for Education you can look at: https://unity.com/learn/education

    The other meaning of "free" is whether you are "free" to use the software however you want. This definition of "free" often comes up in open-source software, and the licenses they use. For example, even if a piece of software costs nothing, you're not necessarily "free" to use it however you like. Some software lets you use the software for personal use, even making changes to it, as long as you're not selling the modified version. Other software lets you distribute it, as long as you don't change it. Yet other software lets you change/modify/resell/whatever. It depends on the license. Although some aspects of Unity are open source, I wouldn't expect that you're "free" to use it for every purpose. If that's the kind of "free" you mean, you'd need to look into Unity's licences.