Banshee if offered using a dual-license model: LGPL v3 and Commercial.
Banshee is offered completely free for personal or commercial use under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3 (LGPL v3). You will find the complete terms of the license in the License sub-directory that comes with the project.
A commercial license is available for those that are not comfortable with LGPL terms. The commercial license is a paid per-user license that allows you to distribute your application under your own terms.
It is available under the "pay what you want" model, meaning you can purchase it for as little as $0 or as much as $1000. This is completely up to you and we won't judge if you just want a free license.
However if you like Banshee consider spending some money as this ensures we can pay the costs for developing it further. The money will be invested into hiring more developers to help with adding more features faster (see Roadmap), as well as help with testing, polish and documentation.
Licenses for all third party libraries used by Banshee can be found in License\ThirdParty sub-directory of the source code.
Why have two separate licenses? LGPL is offered because at its core Banshee is an open source project. Commercial license is offered because we wish to fund Banshee development so we can make it bigger and better than other open source engines.
How do I get a commercial license? Until a website is set up, you must contact me personally at marko.pintera@gmail.com
What are the differences between the two licenses? Engine features for both license models are identical. The only difference are the license terms.
What are the limitations of the LGPL license? When modifying the source code of the engine, or linking the engine statically with your application you will be required to release your code/application under LGPL or a compatible license.
This involves providing the source code for your application, as well as giving the rights to use, modify and redistribute your code/application to anyone who acquires it.
What are the limitations of the commercial license? You can publish binaries of your product (including all portions of Banshee, modified or original) under any terms you wish. The only limitation being that you are not allowed to publish Banshee's source code (modified or original) under a custom license (source code must be published under the LGPL).