---
title: 'Mullet is free for your company'
canonical: 'https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/writing/mullet-is-free-for-your-company'
url: 'https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/writing/mullet-is-free-for-your-company'
type: Post
published: '2026-10-25'
summary: 'Mullet’s licence used to say one developer, one running instance. It now allows free production use for any purpose, including inside a company, with one exclusion: offering Mullet to others as a service.'
---

# Mullet is free for your company

Published 2026-10-25

![A short list of what the licence allows and does not. Production use, for any purpose: yes. Inside a company or team: yes. Any number of machines: yes. To build software you sell or ship: yes. Offering Mullet to others as a hosted, managed or embedded service: needs a licence.](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/almanac_shot_md/public/content/images/posts/mullet-is-free-for-your-company/hero.png.webp?itok=cd2cDEZn)

I changed Mullet’s licence today. The old wording said one developer could use it free, on one running instance. The new wording is simpler and a lot more open.

## What you can do

Under the [Business Source License 1.1](https://github.com/tomgould/mullet-public/blob/main/LICENSE), you may use Mullet in production, free, for any purpose:

- on your own, or inside a company or team;
- on any number of machines;
- to build software you sell or ship.

You may also copy, change and redistribute it, as before.

## What it doesn’t cover

One thing: offering Mullet, or a service whose value comes substantially from it, to other people as a hosted, managed or embedded service. An API or a platform that runs Mullet’s job runner or search for its customers is the example in the licence. That needs a commercial licence, and the licence says how to ask.

Each version becomes Apache 2.0 on 3 April 2030, or four years after its first public release if that comes sooner. That date and the Apache terms haven’t changed.

## Why

The old wording was a bad fit for what people actually do. “One individual developer” ruled out a team that wanted to try it at work, and “one running instance” is hard to apply to a tool that is a job runner, a server and some timers, run from more than one machine. I’d have turned away exactly the people most likely to tell me what is wrong with it.

I want more people using Mullet, not fewer. A company running it on its own repos takes nothing from me. The only use I want to keep is the one a source-available licence is for: somebody else selling a hosted Mullet.

## Contributing

If you send code, you sign each commit off (`git commit -s`), which says you wrote it or may submit it. You also grant me the right to use and sublicense your contribution under the licence and under any other licence I choose, including Apache 2.0. That is what keeps a commercial licence possible for the one case above. It is a lighter arrangement than a contributor licence agreement, and if outside contributions grow I may need something heavier.

This is a plain-English account, not legal advice. The wording that counts is in the repository’s `LICENSE`, and the README has the short version. I’ve updated [the Mullet page](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/projects/mullet.md) to match.

- **Projects:** [Mullet](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/projects/mullet.md)
- **Tags:** [Python](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/writing/tag/python.md), [AI](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/writing/tag/ai.md), [Mullet](https://www.dealmobile.co.uk/writing/tag/mullet.md)

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