MiniZinc is Free and Open Source Software

The core tools of MiniZinc, i.e., the MiniZinc compiler and the MiniZinc IDE, are distributed under the Mozilla Public License version 2.0. This license is classified as open source and free software.

The Mozilla project maintains a useful FAQ about the Mozilla license. In particular, the FAQ explains your obligations if you want to use the MiniZinc source code or binaries we provide, or re-distribute the binaries, or distribute binaries that you created from the MiniZinc source code.

Third-party software

The official MiniZinc binary packages contain several pieces of software in addition to the MiniZinc compiler and IDE. These are distributed under the following licenses:

• Qt Framework

  The MiniZinc IDE is developed using the Qt toolkit, which is available under several licenses including the LGPL. In the MiniZinc binary distributions, the MiniZinc IDE links against the dynamic libraries provided by the Qt framework. You can therefore replace those Qt libraries with your own version, as required by the LGPL. If you intend to re-distribute the MiniZinc IDE in a setting where you cannot comply with the terms of the LGPL, you may have to get a commercial license for Qt, or use MiniZinc without the IDE.

• Gecode

  The source code for the Gecode solver is available from GitHub under the MIT license. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, Gecode is included as a stand-alone binary fzn-gecode (or fzn-gecode.exe), and statically linked as part of the MiniZinc compiler (minizinc). The distributed Gecode binary is compiled with support for Gecode Gist, and as such also links against the Qt framework (see above), with the same licensing implications.

• Chuffed

  The source code for the Chuffed solver is available from GitHub under the MIT license. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, Chuffed is included as a stand-alone binary fzn-chuffed (or fzn-chuffed.exe).

• OR-Tools CP-SAT

  The source code for the OR-Tools CP-SAT solver is available from GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, CP-SAT is included as a stand-alone binary fzn-cp-sat (or fzn-cp-sat.exe).

• COIN-OR CBC

  The source code for the COIN-OR branch and cut solver is available from GitHub under the Eclipse Public License 1.0. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, CBC is statically linked into the MiniZinc compiler (minizinc).

• HiGHS

  The source code for the HiGHS solver is available from GitHub under the MIT License. In the MiniZinc binary distribution, the MiniZinc compiler (minizinc) dynamically links to HiGHS at runtime.

All open-source licenses above permit linking to and distributing binary versions of the software.

MiniZinc Documentation

The source code for the MiniZinc documentation is available from GitHub. The source code and the documentation itself is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license.