# FreeRTOS+\* licenses **URL:** \ **Category:** Kernel\ **Created:** [December 14, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920 "2017-12-14T18:18:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://d2v6vdsk2p900z.cloudfront.net/original/1X/7fc8fdb729c645aab5b20282bbe34e57cb407be6.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.freertos.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/1 "2017-12-14T18:18:26Z")
**[ravendisplayed](https://sourceforge.net/u/ravendisplayed/)** wrote on [Thursday, December 14, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#3017): Congratulations on the AWS changes integration. I appreciate the license change for FreeRTOS and I am wondering how that will affect the FreeRTOS+ ecosystem. I’m particularly intested in CLI, FAT, Trace and IO. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![rtel](https://d3iykfbgfh8zhg.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.freertos.org/rtel/32/31_2.png) [@rtel](https://forums.freertos.org/u/rtel)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2017, 7:59pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/2 "2017-12-14T19:59:06Z")
**[rtel](https://sourceforge.net/u/rtel/)** wrote on [Thursday, December 14, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#3017/e883): The website is being updated to document the new licenses. FreeRTOS+TCP, FreeRTOS+CLI and FreeRTOS+UDP are already under the MIT license in the FreeRTOS v10 download. +FAT can be made available under the MIT too but so far has not been re-released as it is in the labs download which has not yet been updated. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://d2v6vdsk2p900z.cloudfront.net/original/1X/7fc8fdb729c645aab5b20282bbe34e57cb407be6.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.freertos.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/3 "2017-12-15T00:48:33Z")
**[ravendisplayed](https://sourceforge.net/u/ravendisplayed/)** wrote on [Friday, December 15, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#3017/e883/722e): Great! Thank you very much. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://d2v6vdsk2p900z.cloudfront.net/original/1X/7fc8fdb729c645aab5b20282bbe34e57cb407be6.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.freertos.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 7:31am UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/4 "2017-12-15T07:31:53Z")
**[davidbrown](https://sourceforge.net/u/davidbrown/)** wrote on [Friday, December 15, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#3017/e883/0630): On 14/12/17 20:59, Richard Barry wrote: > The website is being updated to document the new licenses. > FreeRTOS+TCP, FreeRTOS+CLI and FreeRTOS+UDP are already under the MIT > license in the FreeRTOS v10 download. +FAT can be made available under > the MIT too but so far has not been re-released as it is in the labs > download which has not yet been updated. The real step up, as I see it, will be the TLS stuff under MIT license. People have been able to use FreeRTOS with LWIP for many years, and there are at least a couple of usable FAT implementations under commercial embedded-friendly open source licences. TLS has been the missing part - you have had to buy a licence (fine for some people and projects, less good for others) or switch to a completely different system like mbed. ---
**Author:** ![rtel](https://d3iykfbgfh8zhg.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.freertos.org/rtel/32/31_2.png) [@rtel](https://forums.freertos.org/u/rtel)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/5 "2017-12-15T16:09:04Z")
**[rtel](https://sourceforge.net/u/rtel/)** wrote on [Friday, December 15, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#3017/e883/0630/846b): The TLS library in the FreeRTOS kernel download (from SourceForge) is a third party product so we can’t change the license. The TLS in Amazon FreeRTOS (from GIT) is mbedTLS (Apache license) with a TLS abstraction layer on top. ---
**Author:** ![htibosch](https://d3iykfbgfh8zhg.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.freertos.org/htibosch/32/62_2.png) [@htibosch](https://forums.freertos.org/u/htibosch)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/6 "2017-12-15T17:20:38Z")
**[heinbali01](https://sourceforge.net/u/heinbali01/)** wrote on [Friday, December 15, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#1b30): Hi David, > People have been able to use FreeRTOS with LWIP for many years, That is true but, FreeRTOS+TCP has several advantages above FreeRTOS & lwIP. Yes the combination worked but there were (I had) many complaints, mostly because lwIP was not written for a multi-tasking system. But also, lwIP is only fast (efficient) when you do NOT use BSD sockets. FreeRTOS+TCP only has a BSD socket interface which is totally optimised. In short: there were many good reasons to develop a proprietary UDP/TCP/IP library that is totally integrated with the FreeRTOS kernel. And better: FreeRTOS+TCP is **already** available under the liberal MIT license! ( actually, the FreeRTOS+TCP library has been tested by individuals at the MIT ) > and there are at least a couple of usable FAT implementations under > commercial embedded-friendly open source licences. FreeRTOS+FAT will get an MIT license as soon as there is time to move it from /Labs to “mainstream”. The only comparable embedded-friendly FAT driver that I know of is ELM by ChaN. It is great code, more compact than +FAT. But the advantage of FreeRTOS+FAT is that it much easier to understand. Also its error-handling is very complete and helpful. It has stdio-like user-functions and it mounts several drives into a single root `"/"`. For instance, a file like “`/ram/settings.txt`” can be handled by a RAM-disk driver. > TLS has been the missing part - you have had to buy a licence (fine > for some people and projects, less good for others) or switch to a > completely different system like mbed. I totally agree with this statement. It would be nice to find a TLS library that has the same liberal license. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://d2v6vdsk2p900z.cloudfront.net/original/1X/7fc8fdb729c645aab5b20282bbe34e57cb407be6.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.freertos.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 8:32am UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/7 "2017-12-18T08:32:48Z")
**[davidbrown](https://sourceforge.net/u/davidbrown/)** wrote on [Monday, December 18, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#1b30/69f9): On 15/12/17 18:20, Hein Tibosch wrote: > Hi David, > > > People have been able to use FreeRTOS with LWIP for many years, > > That is true but, FreeRTOS+TCP has several advantages above FreeRTOS > & lwIP. Yes the combination worked but there were (I had) many > complaints, mostly because lwIP was not written for a multi-tasking > system. But also, lwIP is only fast (efficient) when you do NOT use > BSD sockets. FreeRTOS+TCP only has a BSD socket interface which is > totally optimised. > > In short: there were many good reasons to develop a proprietary > UDP/TCP/IP library that is totally integrated with the FreeRTOS > kernel. Yes, I fully appreciate that. There can be many advantages in an integrated and dedicated network library as part of FreeRTOS. > And better: FreeRTOS+TCP is **already** available under the liberal > MIT license! > > ( actually, the FreeRTOS+TCP library has been tested by individuals > at the MIT ) > > > and there are at least a couple of usable FAT implementations > > under commercial embedded-friendly open source licences. > > FreeRTOS+FAT will get an MIT license as soon as there is time to move > it from /Labs to “mainstream”. > > The only comparable embedded-friendly FAT driver that I know of is > ELM by ChaN. It is great code, more compact than +FAT. But the > advantage of FreeRTOS+FAT is that it much easier to understand. Also > its error-handling is very complete and helpful. It has stdio-like > user-functions and it mounts several drives into a single root `"/"`. > For instance, a file like “`/ram/settings.txt`” can be handled by a > RAM-disk driver. The ChaN code is the one I have used. I have no experience with the FreeRTOS code, so I can’t compare - but again I can see many advantages in having it as part of FreeRTOS rather than a third party generic library. > > TLS has been the missing part - you have had to buy a licence > > (fine for some people and projects, less good for others) or switch > > to a completely different system like mbed. > > I totally agree with this statement. It would be nice to find a TLS > library that has the same liberal license. As far as I can see, Amazon FreeRTOS /does/ include TLS under an MIT license. Anyway, this is all good stuff. I am always happy to see new features in FreeRTOS (the stream and message buffers are a fine idea), and happy that more features are available for more people and with less effort. I know there is always a certain risk when a small company or project enters close cooperation with a large company, but everything I have seen so far looks good, and I think it will be good for the future of FreeRTOS, the community of users, and the folks developing and supporting it. Now I just need to find a new project that will give me an excuse to play with the latest version! ---
**Author:** ![rtel](https://d3iykfbgfh8zhg.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.freertos.org/rtel/32/31_2.png) [@rtel](https://forums.freertos.org/u/rtel)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/8 "2017-12-18T17:14:55Z")
**[rtel](https://sourceforge.net/u/rtel/)** wrote on [Monday, December 18, 2017](https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/discussion/382005/thread/9d82df2f/#1b30/69f9/205b): Just a small correction - the TLS stack in Amazon FreeRTOS is third party and actually under the Apache license, rather than MIT. ---
**Author:** ![PaulMadle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aeb1de/32.png) [@PaulMadle](https://forums.freertos.org/u/PaulMadle)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 7:44am UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/9 "2020-01-27T07:44:52Z")
Hi Richard and others. I am in the process of evaluating FreeRTOS as the RTOS solution for [opensourcesatellite.org](http://opensourcesatellite.org) So far, it has proven pretty easy to get going, I have been very impressed by FreeRTOS by comparison to the support available from some expensive commercial vendors. Anyhow, I have a question about the license on FreeRTOS+IO? From looking at the source code, it looks like this is GPL? However, the FreeRTOS website seems to suggest MIT? Can someone clarify the licensing for the FreeRTOS+IO library? ---
**Author:** ![rtel](https://d3iykfbgfh8zhg.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.freertos.org/rtel/32/31_2.png) [@rtel](https://forums.freertos.org/u/rtel)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://forums.freertos.org/t/freertos-licenses/6920/10 "2020-01-27T19:15:10Z")
It has also been available MIT licensed for the last few years - we need to put a link up to that too if it is not on the web. However the +IO product is deprecated really as we are starting to publish some new IO interfaces.