The licencing of the wxWidgets library is intended to protect the wxWidgets library, its developers, and its users, so that the considerable investment it represents is not abused.

Under the terms of the original wxWidgets licences, you as a user are not obliged to distribute wxWidgets source code with your products, if you distribute these products in binary form. However, you are prevented from restricting use of the library in source code form, or denying others the rights to use or distribute wxWidgets library source code in the way intended.

The wxWindows Library License establishes the copyright for the code and related material, and it gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the library. It also asserts that no warranty is given by the authors for this or derived code.

The core distribution of the wxWidgets library contains files under two different licences:

Most files are distributed under the GNU Library General Public License, version 2, with the special exception that you may create and distribute object code versions built from the source code or modified versions of it (even if these modified versions include code under a different licence), and distribute such binaries under your own terms.

Most core wxWidgets manuals are made available under the “wxWindows Free Documentation License”, which allows you to distribute modified versions of the manuals, such as versions documenting any modifications made by you in your version of the library. However, you may not restrict any third party from reincorporating your changes into the original manuals.