The Rive editor should be free software

[cyberalt1]

I urge you to consider releasing the Rive Editor under a free software license, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). As it stands, the editor is not free software—not because it is gratis or proprietary in the economic sense, but because users do not have the essential freedoms to study, modify, and share it. This raises serious ethical concerns about user control, autonomy, and the broader implications for society.

Software should respect the freedom of its users. The four essential freedoms are:

1. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1).
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).

Rive, as a tool for creative expression, should empower its users. Releasing the editor as free software would ensure that it contributes to a community of cooperation, rather than enforcing dependency on a proprietary platform. Even if your intent is to protect a business model, there are many viable models compatible with software freedom—such as paid services, support, or hosting—without denying users the control over their computing.

Please consider the ethical dimension of software development. Users deserve to be free.

[HayesGordon]

The Rive Flutter runtime Github repository is not the correct place for this discussion. If you'd like to continue it, you can do so here: https://community.rive.app/feed.

However, I'll quickly comment on the above. Rive's entire pipeline is open source, except for the Editor. The following is all open and available under an MIT license:

• Runtimes
• Renderer
• Format

This means that you can build a custom Rive editor that outputs the Rive format and use the Rive runtimes and renderer for free.

Rive only monetizes the Editor and other enterprise-level services. For that reason, the Editor remains closed source. However, we also provide a very permissive free license for the Editor.