LMMS

GPL-2.0-or-later commercial OK Credit: Not required verified 49d ago Go to source

Cross-platform DAW (Windows, Linux, macOS) with piano roll, mixer, built-in synths, LADSPA/VST, and SoundFont2. This is the missing tracker-adjacent music tool next to Tenacity, which only edits samples. The application is GNU GPL-2.0. The homepage does not publish a license body (it says "100% free, open source"). GitHub LICENSE.txt is GPLv2. Pages fetched on 2026-08-24 do not say your exported song is yours. GPL on a DAW does not copyleft a composition you wrote, but that sentence is inferred. Bundled presets, VSTs, and any SF2 you load keep their own terms.

At a glance

Licence: GPL-2.0-or-later what it means shipping to stores
Commercial use: commercial OK
Credit: Not required
Status: active: Licence spot-checked at the source; the entry carries dated evidence.
Verified: 2026-09-22 (49d ago)
Formats: WAV, OGG, MIDI, MMP

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Notes

Evidence for the tool license: github.com/LMMS/lmms LICENSE.txt and GitHub SPDX GPL-2.0
Shipping LMMS itself inside a closed product is a GPL event. Shipping a WAV you bounced is not automatically that event
Nintendo / Roland / Yamaha chip emulations in the plugin list are emulations. Do not treat ROM dumps or trademarked patch names as free
Prefer Incompetech (Kevin MacLeod) or Kenney Music Jingles when you want a library grant instead of a DAW
Checklist: license file on GitHub, commercial use of the program under GPL, no NC/ND on the app, not a marketplace, community project, not blocklisted, tool vs song ownership unquoted
Source headers elect "or any later version", so the SPDX identifier is GPL-2.0-or-later rather than the bare, deprecated GPL-2.0.

Evidence

Live GitHub src/core/main.cpp header (2026-09-22): "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version"
Live GitHub LICENSE.txt (2026-08-24): "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991"
Live GitHub repo license metadata (2026-08-24): SPDX "GPL-2.0"
Live homepage (2026-08-24): "LMMS is a 100% free, open source, community-driven project" (not a license name)

LMMS

At a glance

Notes

Evidence

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