# Licensing 

The SDK license permits any kind of license for your plugin. If you are the
original author, then you are free to release your plugin under any license you
wish, including commercial licensing. However, if you are not the sole author
of the project, then you need to carefully check what the licesning
requirements are of the code, artwork, and names you used.

For example, if you used code that was licensed with a GPL license, then it's
likely you will need to release your plugin under the same GPL license. Other
types of licenses might make requirements about "derivative works", which your
plugin may be considered if you ported. It's your responsibility to carefully
and completely check your work is in compliance. This is a legal matter and
should be taken seriously.

# Permissions


## Contact the original author

In addition to adhering to legal requirements of licensing, if your plugin
is largely based on another work (i.e. you ported a VCV Rack or VST plugin to
MetaModule), then you should contact the original author and ask for permission
to port their work to the MetaModule. Not only is this polite, but you also may
find out someone else is working on a port, or that the author wishes to help,
or perhaps the author would not be happy to see their work running on another
platform. Other times, you may be asked to put a disclaimer that the plugin is
not official and all bug reports should go to you (instead of to the author of the
original plugin). In any case, even if there is not always a strict legal
requirement to contact the original author, it's in the interest of everyone
involved and in the general spirit of sharing to be in communication with the
original author before porting. 

## Consider other aspects besides the source code

Keep in mind, there may be different licenses and permissions for various
aspects of the project. For instance, some projects may have different
requirements for you to use:

- Source code
- The plugin or brand name
- The artwork

Make sure you have permission to use all portions of the original work that
you used. If anything is unclear, contact the original author and ask. 
You may need to change the name or create your own artwork from scratch. 
Feel free to reach out for help on the metamodule forum if you are stuck
or don't know what to do.

