llama.cpp is MIT: no patent grant, no copyleft, only requires preserving copyright notices

You want to use llama.cpp in a commercial product and need to understand the license terms. MIT is simpler than Apache 2.0 but has no patent grant.

MIT license grants permission to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the software, with only one condition: preserve the copyright and permission notices. There is no patent grant (unlike Apache 2.0), no copyleft (unlike GPL), and no trademark grant.

If you use llama.cpp in a commercial product: (1) you can use, modify, and distribute freely, (2) you must include the MIT license and copyright notice, (3) you have no patent protection from contributors (if someone patents a llama.cpp technique, you have no license), (4) you can sublicense under any terms. MIT is the most permissive major license.

Verified: llama.cpp's LICENSE file is the standard MIT text (21 lines, 1.05 KB), copyright 2023-2026 The ggml authors. The lack of a patent grant is the key difference from Apache 2.0. For most commercial users, this is irrelevant — but if you're in a patent-heavy field, it matters.