We’re excited to share an update about the BeeGFS Community Edition as we look further ahead into 2026. From February, the Community Edition will transition from the current End User License Agreement (EULA) to a new BeeGFS License Agreement, designed to better support our users.

This change is a deliberate step toward greater clarity and fairness in how BeeGFS is used across today’s increasingly complex AI & HPC and related high-performance storage landscapes. It preserves the spirit of openness that has always defined BeeGFS, while introducing clear, transparent boundaries that distinguish community use from enterprise-scale and commercial deployments.

The result is a future-proof licensing framework: one that supports genuine community adoption and contribution, and ensures that large-scale, production-grade environments are backed by appropriate Enterprise licensing.

Important:
This change affects only users of the free-of-charge BeeGFS Community Edition previously licensed under the EULA.

If you are already using BeeGFS Enterprise (including Hive Enterprise) under a commercial agreement, nothing for you changes. Your contracts, rights, deployments, and support terms remain fully intact.

Why the EULA no longer fits

The EULA served BeeGFS well in its early years, helping it become the world’s leading parallel file system for small and medium-sized AI and HPC clusters. It enabled broad access, supported increasing academic and research use, and helped build a strong global community.

However, the environment in which BeeGFS is deployed has evolved significantly.

Today, we operate in a world of:

  • Global system integrators and resellers
  • AI and HPC-as-a-Service offerings
  • Multi-petabyte production environments where BeeGFS is operations-critical software infrastructure

Over time, we observed an increasing number of cases where BeeGFS Community was deployed in clearly commercial and production-scale contexts, often operated and supported by third parties while the EULA was accepted by end users rather than by the commercial entities providing services around BeeGFS.

This created legal ambiguity for everyone involved:

  • Users were unsure whether their deployment qualified as “Community”
  • Integrators operated in grey areas
  • ThinkParQ faced growing compliance complexity

The EULA was never designed to clearly address modern service-based delivery models or large-capacity production usage. As a result, it no longer provided the legal certainty that users and partners need.

So, what is the BeeGFS License Agreement?

The BeeGFS License Agreement is designed to remove that ambiguity.

It provides a clear, modern framework for users who deploy BeeGFS as a high-performance scratch file system for internal use, without third-party commercial involvement while defining transparent thresholds for when an Enterprise license is required.

What stays open

Under the BeeGFS License Agreement, you can:

  • Use BeeGFS Community as a high-performance scratch file system
  • Access the BeeGFS source code
  • Modify, customize, and extend BeeGFS Community within your legal entity
  • Keep your changes private or contribute them back through our standard contribution process

This ensures that scratch usage, experimentation, and internal innovation remain fully supported.

Clear Boundaries for Fair Use

To ensure fairness and long-term sustainability, the new license introduces explicit safeguards.

BeeGFS Community may not be used for commercial services involving BeeGFS, including:

  • Software maintenance for third parties
  • Renting, leasing, distributing or reselling BeeGFS
  • Offering BeeGFS as part of SaaS, managed services, or system integration engagements

Capacity-based thresholds now apply:

  • Free Community use up to one (1) Petabyte of total storage capacity
  • Free Community use for BeeOND deployments with up to five (5) compute nodes contributing storage

Once these thresholds are exceeded  or Enterprise features are required,  a BeeGFS Enterprise license is needed. The transition path is straightforward and designed to support growth, not block it.

Community Registration key for clear license acceptance

Starting with upcoming BeeGFS releases, we will introduce a simple registration step as part of the installation process of BeeGFS Community. This lightweight registration step ensures a clean and transparent legal framework by clearly identifying who accepts the BeeGFS License Agreement.

The registration step is not a technical limitation. Instead, it provides clarity and accountability by ensuring that the user deploying BeeGFS Community explicitly agrees to the license terms. This approach protects both users and ThinkParQ, reduces legal ambiguity, and helps preserve the integrity of the Community Edition as BeeGFS continues to scale.

Still open, still community-powered

The team behind BeeGFS and I want to be absolutely clear: BeeGFS remains source-available and community-driven.

Nothing changes in how the community collaborates, which remains at the core of BeeGFS:

  • Public GitHub repositories remain public
  • GitHub Issues, Discussions, and Pull Requests stay fully active
  • The Contributor License Agreement (CLA) remains unchanged
  • Community contributions are still welcome and valued

What has changed is the legal framework around the Community Edition, designed to give both users and ThinkParQ greater confidence as BeeGFS continues to scale into new domains.

What if you’ve already exceeded the threshold?

If you previously deployed BeeGFS Community under the EULA and your existing installation exceeds the new capacity thresholds:

  • You may continue using your current deployed version under the original terms.
  • If you plan to upgrade to newer BeeGFS versions, please contact us (sales(@)thinkparq.com) in advance so we can align on the appropriate licensing.

Our goal is continuity and transparency, not disruption.

Looking ahead

The  BeeGFS License Agreement ensures that BeeGFS can remain:

  • Open and accessible for genuine community use
  • Legally clear for modern deployment models
  • Sustainable for continued innovation and support

We believe this change strengthens both the BeeGFS ecosystem and the trust of everyone who builds on it.

If you have questions, concerns, or feedback, we encourage you to engage with us, as always, the BeeGFS community is part of shaping its future.

Author: Frank Herold, CEO, ThinkParQ