LICENSEWARE
Contribute
Publisher · Open source

Postfix

Postfix is the mail transfer agent (mail server) written and maintained by Wietse Venema, which began at IBM Research as an alternative to Sendmail. It is free software, dual-licensed under the IBM Public License 1.0 and the Eclipse Public License 2.0, and ships built in with several Linux and BSD distributions.

Licensing at a Glance

  • Open source

  1. Postfix is Wietse Venema's mail server; it started life at IBM Research as an alternative to Sendmail, and Wietse continues to maintain it.[1]

  2. Since Postfix 3.3.0 the software is distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0 in addition to the historical IBM Public License 1.0, and recipients may choose either licence.[2]

  3. The IBM Public License 1.0 grants each recipient a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright licence to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, distribute and sublicense the program in source and object code form.[3]

  4. Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Ubuntu Linux and NetBSD ship with Postfix built in; other packages and ports are listed by their maintainers without formal evaluation or warranty.[4]

Products

References

  1. The Postfix Home Page · postfix.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  2. Postfix stable release 3.3.0 · postfix.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  3. IBM Public License Version 1.0 · postfix.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  4. Postfix Packages and Ports · postfix.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
Esc