Editing Common Desktop Environment (section)

== License history ==
From its launch until 2012, CDE was proprietary software.

Motif, the toolkit on which CDE is built, was released by The Open Group in 2000 as "Open Motif," under a "revenue sharing" license. That license did not meet either the [[Open Source Definition|open source]] or [[Free software licence|free software]] definitions. The Open Group had wished to make Motif open source, but did not succeed doing so at that time.<ref>{{cite web
 |url = http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html
 |title = Open Motif Frequently Asked Questions
 |access-date = November 30, 2007
 |date = July 13, 2004
 |publisher = The Open Group
 |archive-date = January 30, 2012
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120130181327/http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html
 |url-status = live
 }}</ref>

=== Release under the GNU LGPL ===
In 2006, a [[petition]] was created asking The Open Group to release the source code for CDE and Motif under a free license.<ref>{{cite web
 |url = http://www.marutan.net/cde/
 |title = Petition to Open Source CDE and Motif
 |access-date = November 30, 2007
 |author = Peter Howkins
 |archive-date = January 10, 2008
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080110015238/http://www.marutan.net/cde/
 |url-status = live
 }}</ref> On August 6, 2012, CDE was released under the [[GNU Lesser General Public License|LGPL-2.0-or-later]] license.<ref name=osnews2012-08-06/><ref>{{cite web
 |url = http://blog.opengroup.org/2012/09/27/how-the-operating-system-got-graphical/
 |title = How the Operating System Got Graphical
 |publisher = The Open Group
 |author = Dave Lounsbury
 |date = September 27, 2012
 |access-date = September 27, 2012
 |archive-date = November 27, 2012
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121127031754/http://blog.opengroup.org/2012/09/27/how-the-operating-system-got-graphical/
 |url-status = live
 }}</ref> The CDE source code was then released to [[SourceForge]].

The free software project OpenCDE had been started in 2010 to reproduce the [[look and feel]], organization, and feature set of CDE.<ref>
 {{cite web
 |url = http://www.opencde.org
 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140909225404/http://opencde.org/
 |url-status = dead
 |archive-date = September 9, 2014
 |title = OpenCDE
 |access-date = February 14, 2011
 |author = kpedersen
 }}</ref> In August 2012, when CDE was released as free software, OpenCDE was officially deprecated in favor of CDE.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://devio.us/~kpedersen/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1293|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124230739/http://devio.us/~kpedersen/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1293|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 24, 2012|title=CDE Open Sourced!|author=woomia|work=OpenCDE Forums|date=August 6, 2012|quote=With this, OpenCDE is officially deprecated. Feel free to make a fork of it if you wish.}}</ref>

On October 23, 2012, the Motif widget toolkit was also released under the [[GNU Lesser General Public License|LGPL-2.1-or-later]] license.<ref>{{cite web|title = ICS MotifZone|url = http://motif.ics.com/|date = October 2012|access-date = November 2, 2017|archive-date = October 5, 2012|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121005160251/http://motif.ics.com/|url-status = live}}</ref> This allowed CDE to become a completely free and open source desktop environment.

Shortly after CDE was released as free software, a Linux [[live CD]] was created based on [[Debian]] 6 with CDE 2.2.0c pre-installed, called CDEbian.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.vecchiomago.net/index.php?mod=read&id=1359614669| title=VecchiomagoPuntoNet: CDEbian 0.7| date=January 31, 2013| access-date=January 6, 2016| archive-date=March 4, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304044107/http://www.vecchiomago.net/index.php?mod=read&id=1359614669| url-status=live}}</ref> The live CD has since been discontinued.

The Debian-based Linux distribution [[SparkyLinux]]<ref>{{cite web| url=https://sparkylinux.org/cde-common-desktop-environment/| title=SparkyLinux: CDE – Common Desktop Environment| date=September 5, 2016| access-date=July 14, 2018| archive-date=July 14, 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714135316/https://sparkylinux.org/cde-common-desktop-environment/| url-status=live}}</ref> offers binary packages of CDE that can be installed with APT. As of March 2023, CDE is also included in the NuTyX GNU/Linux distribution which offers an ISO download image with it,<ref>{{cite web |title=NuTyX GNU/Linux Downloads |url=https://www.nutyx.org/en/downloads |website=NuTyX GNU/Linux |access-date=2 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301234552/https://www.nutyx.org/en/downloads |archive-date=1 March 2023 |language=English |url-status=live}}</ref> in FreeBSD<ref>{{cite web |title=FreshPorts -- x11/cde: Common Desktop Environment |url=https://www.freshports.org/x11/cde/ |website=FreshPorts |access-date=2 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221204175403/https://www.freshports.org/x11/cde/ |archive-date=4 December 2022 |language=English |url-status=live}}</ref> and in source form in [[pkgsrc]]<ref>{{cite web |title=pkgsrc.se The NetBSD package collection |url=https://pkgsrc.se/wm/cde |website=pkgsrc.se |access-date=2 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230302190127/https://pkgsrc.se/wm/cde |archive-date=2 March 2023 |language=English |url-status=live}}</ref> which is the default package manager of NetBSD.