What is the Difference Between Aseprite and LibreSprite?

LibreSprite is a fork of Aseprite that doesn't have as many features, but can be used for free.

This article is about what this means. See [Aseprite vs. LibreSprite Feature Comparison] if you want to know what features Asprite has that LibreSprite doesn't have.

Explanation

Aseprite was originally libreware: it was open source, which means its source code was published publicly and licensed such way that anyone could redistribute it. So anyone could take the source code, create the .exe out of it, and either give it to others for free, or sell it. In 2016, Aseprite changed its source code license from GPLv2 to a proprietary one¹. Under the new licensing terms, you can't do this anymore, only Aseprite's source code copyright owners can sell the .exe, which they do, for 20 dollars at the moment.

Effectively, this means that Aseprite stopped being free.

The change of licensing terms was necessary because if Aseprite started selling the .exe, but the license said anyone could give the .exe for free, so everyone would just Google "free aseprite" and download the first link they saw. I'm pretty sure they still do this anyway, but at least now Aseprite's owners have a legal right to tell people redistributing Aseprite to stop, and that they're the only ones allowed to sell the application.

However, the change in license only applies to newer versions of the software. When Aseprite published its source code licensed under GPLv2, it made it licensed that way permanently. They can't "un-license" it after it's already been licensed. The only thing they can do is say that all new versions won't have the same license.

And they can only do this because they had permission from all the people who contributed code to Aseprite, from all copyright holders, otherwise they wouldn't be able to change the license while still including GPLv2 licensed code in their codebase.

Under the new license terms, Aseprite can still be obtained for free. All you have to do is download the source code, which is still published publicly on their GitHub page, [github.com/aseprite/aseprite], and then figure out how to compile it.

How Hard is it to Compile Aseprite on your own?

It's extremely easy if you are a programmer on Linux. All you need to do is clone the repository, run build.sh, then fix the errors it will tell you by installing the missing dependencies.

If you aren't a programmer or you are on Windows, then it will get a lot more complicated.

Even if you can compile it yourself, it's better to just pay 20 dollars for the program anyway so you don't have to worry about it. Every time a new version is released you will want to re-build it to get new features, and if something goes wrong you'll have to fix it. You pay 20 dollars so that's somebody else's problem. Program doesn't run? You're a customer, just contact customer support.