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A FOSS swipe keyboard that wants user input
(makertube.net)
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this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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That's not how that works...
It just means you can't modify it and make a profit from selling it or monetizing your modifications.
(... Or try to sell it without modification, for that matter)
Show me where the license supports your interpretation.
The parts you quoted, for one...
"Non-commercial" is well defined.
For a general overview: https://www.copyrighted.com/blog/copyright-commercial-use#what-is-commercial-use-in-copyright
Just as I said, can't use the keyboard with modifications to write a work email. Since the license doesn't grant that permission, it's unsafe to assume that it does.
When I was 14 I purchased a CD with a copy of the Audacity installer on it from a shady site for $30...
I seriously doubt the authors intend you to uninstall your keyboard every time you need to write a work email; it's to stop you from profiting off of their work, just as you can't remove their branding and funding links when you re-distribute.
I have CC BY-NC images as my desktop wallpaper on my work laptop... Now if my work was selling the laptop then it could become a problem, especially if the pretty art was part of the value proposition. While it merely existing might be a gray area under some hyper-pedantic interpretation, it's functionally irrelevant in the real world until there's money involved and the licensor can show damages.
(Psst I also changed some behaviour in my GPL editor for personal use once without sharing my changes and also I also used that version a few times while writing proprietary commercial code... Pls don't tell Stallman)
As long as you didn't ship the edited binary of the GPL editor with your proprietary software, you are safe here.
Personal anecdotes of successful piracy don't make for an open-source license agreement, otherwise I would be a minor king of open-source.
If a database server's license says “only allowed to use for personal purposes”, it's rather obvious that I can't install it at my work. If a keyboard's license says “you may modify the software only for non-commercial purposes”, it's less clear, but also not apparent why the same interpretation shouldn't apply. Most importantly, copyright law doesn't allow willy-nilly use by default in the case of doubt.
As the other commenter correctly pointed out, GPL only requires you to share your code if you distribute the compiled binary. And, being a fully FOSS license, GPL doesn't restrict commercial use of programs.