A LITTLE CLARITY. A FAIR DEAL.
Free for personal, noncommercial use and for nonprofits and local governments running their own systems. Commercial use and other organizational use require a separate paid license before deployment.
PERSONAL · NONPROFIT · LOCAL GOVERNMENT
For personal, noncommercial use and eligible organizations running their own systems.
BUSINESS · ORGANIZATIONAL
Agree the scope and fees before commercial deployment.
KNOW WHERE YOU STAND
Business use on your own laptop still requires a paid license. So does using Mr Patchy in your business to serve a nonprofit or local government.
| How you use Mr Patchy | Licensing |
|---|---|
| Your private household or personal homelab | Free personal license |
| Internal company servers, including development and testing | Paid commercial agreement |
| Consulting, MSP services, hosted offerings or client systems | Paid commercial agreement |
| Legally recognized nonprofit running its own systems for its mission | Free nonprofit use |
| Municipality, county or other local government running its own systems for public duties | Free local government use |
| For-profit school, state or national government, or other organizational use outside the free grant | Paid agreement or separate written exception |
| Browsing this website or reviewing public documentation/source | No fee merely to browse or review |
LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR FLEET
Contact Robert Cronin through the official project with your organization, intended deployment and approximate endpoint count. Keep secrets and sensitive infrastructure details out of public issues.
Price, deployment scope, term and any support obligations are agreed in writing. A request, download or fork does not grant commercial rights. No automatic commercial trial or checkout is offered.
Start a licensing conversation
A GOOD FIT FOR YOUR FLEET.Yes. They can copy and modify Mr Patchy for use within their own organization. Their employees and volunteers can use it on their behalf. The free grant covers internal use.
Yes, for the permitted personal, noncommercial use. Share only with eligible individuals, include the complete license and notices, identify modifications and keep the same use restrictions. Commercial distribution or hosted services require a commercial agreement.
Mr Patchy is source-available under a custom license with commercial-use restrictions. It is not an OSI-approved open-source license. Third-party components retain their own licenses and rights.
No. Separately licensed dependencies keep their original terms. The new terms apply to copies distributed under this license and do not revoke earlier valid grants or separately negotiated agreements.
The full license is below, in the application and both repositories, and included in the website build archive. Download the complete license text.
THE COMPLETE TERMS
Version 1.1 · 2026-11-05. This full text controls over page summaries.
Mr Patchy Personal and Commercial License Version 1.1 — 2026-11-05 License identifier: LicenseRef-MrPatchy-Personal-Commercial-1.1 Copyright (c) 2026 Robert Cronin and applicable contributors. All rights reserved except as expressly granted below. 1. SCOPE AND LICENSOR This license applies to the Mr Patchy application, collectors, installation and maintenance scripts, original documentation, website code and original project assets distributed with this license (the "Software"), to the extent the relevant copyright holder has authority to license them. Robert Cronin is the project licensor and commercial licensing contact (the "Licensor"). Separately identified third-party components remain governed by their own licenses, not this license. 2. FREE USE 2.1 Personal use An individual natural person may, without paying a license fee, download, install, run, inspect, copy and modify the Software solely for that person's own private, noncommercial purposes. This includes personal devices, a private household network, a personal homelab and independent noncommercial learning or research. There is no endpoint or time limit imposed by this personal-use grant. An individual may share unmodified copies or personal modifications without a fee with other eligible individuals solely for the same personal, noncommercial use, provided that the complete license and copyright notices accompany the copies, changes are identified, and no additional rights or endorsement are represented. The recipient must comply with this license independently. This permission does not permit selling, commercially distributing, sublicensing, or offering the Software as a managed or hosted service. 2.2 Nonprofit and local government use A legally recognized nonprofit organization or a local government body (including a municipality, county, or local government department or agency) may download, install, run, inspect, copy and modify the Software without paying a license fee or obtaining a separate agreement. This grant covers the organization's own systems in support of its nonprofit mission or local public duties. Its employees and volunteers may exercise these rights on its behalf. There is no endpoint or time limit under this grant. This grant permits internal copies and modifications subject to Section 5. It does not authorize distribution outside the organization, sublicensing, resale, managing third-party systems as a service, or offering the Software as a managed or hosted service. A contractor or service provider using the Software in its business requires a separate commercial license even when serving an eligible organization. 3. OTHER USE REQUIRES A SEPARATE LICENSE Except for the uses expressly permitted by Section 2 or otherwise authorized in writing by the Licensor, commercial or organizational use requires a separate written commercial license from the Licensor and payment of the fees required by that agreement before use begins. The agreement defines the licensed users, endpoints, deployment, term, fees and any support or other obligations. A download, source-code fork, purchase inquiry, contribution or public website visit does not itself grant a commercial license. No commercial evaluation or trial is granted unless authorized in writing. Subject to Section 2, commercial or organizational use includes: - Use in, for, or on behalf of a business, employer, client or other organization, including internal IT operations, development, testing and production systems. - Professional, consulting, contractor, managed-service-provider, hosting, SaaS, resale or other revenue-generating or business-supporting activities, even if the Software itself is not sold or the service is offered without a charge. - Use by a sole proprietor or self-employed individual for business purposes. - Organizational deployments outside the grant in Section 2, including those by for-profit schools and by state or national government bodies. A privately owned device does not make work performed for a business or client personal use. A modified copy or fork remains subject to these restrictions. Separate commercial terms control commercial rights within their stated scope. 4. SOURCE ACCESS, WEBSITES AND CONTRIBUTIONS Anyone may read publicly published source code and documentation and browse the project's public websites to learn about the Software, review it, or inquire about a license. This does not permit commercial operation of the Software or commercial reuse of website code, documentation or artwork. Ordinary browser caching and copying necessary to view the public website are permitted. Anyone may review code and prepare and submit changes solely for contribution to the official project. This limited permission does not authorize operational use for an employer, client or organization. Contribution terms, when supplied, apply to intentionally submitted contributions; this license does not retroactively obtain rights in another contributor's existing work. 5. CONDITIONS AND RESERVED RIGHTS Preserve this license and applicable copyright, attribution and third-party notices in copies and distributions. Do not remove notices, misrepresent the origin of a copy, or claim that a modified distribution is an official release. No rights to commercial use, sublicensing, trademarks, logos or endorsements are granted except as expressly stated here or in a separate written agreement. Rights not expressly granted are reserved. Nothing restricts rights that cannot lawfully be restricted by license or applicable third-party licenses. 6. THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS AND PRIOR GRANTS Dependencies, operating-system packages, tools, fonts, libraries and other third-party materials keep their own licenses and notices. This license neither relicenses them nor requires payment for rights they grant independently. A commercial agreement for Mr Patchy does not relieve the user of third-party license obligations. This license governs copies and contributions distributed under it from its introduction onward. It does not revoke rights validly granted under an earlier license, alter separately negotiated agreements, or claim rights the Licensor does not possess. Earlier versions and independently licensed components must be assessed under the terms under which they were obtained. 7. TERMINATION The permissions under this license terminate automatically if the user materially violates its conditions. After termination, stop using and distributing the Software under this license. Rights under a separate commercial agreement are subject to that agreement. A user under Section 2 may request written reinstatement from the Licensor after curing a violation. Applicable statutory rights and independent third-party license rights are unaffected. 8. NO WARRANTY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. NO GUARANTEE IS MADE THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL DETECT EVERY VULNERABILITY OR ATTACK, PREVENT LOSS, OR OPERATE WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. 9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE LICENSOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY ARISING FROM THE SOFTWARE OR ITS USE, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS OR SERVICE. THESE LIMITATIONS DO NOT EXCLUDE LIABILITY THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE EXCLUDED. EXPRESS TERMS IN A SEPARATE SIGNED COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT MAY PROVIDE OTHERWISE. 10. COMMERCIAL LICENSING CONTACT Contact Robert Cronin through the official Mr Patchy project: https://github.com/StealthCat/MrPatchy/issues Request a commercial license before any deployment that requires one under Section 3. Prices and commercial rights are agreed in writing; no purchase or payment flow is supplied by this license.