Hello everyone, everything good ? Please, if an official member of the Sketchup team can answer I would appreciate it as I want to be absolutely sure of the answer:
“Which old and unsupported versions of Sketchup can be used for free for commercial use between the free version and pro version?”
For what I want to do, the old version helps me well, but I had this question, because, despite having browsed the forum here these days and reading that the free versions 6, 7 and 8 can be used for commercial purposes for free, it came to me This question also applies to versions 6, 7 and 8 pro, and as far as I know, they are no longer supported, so I decided to answer these questions, thank you.
I’m not sure about the versions released under google and Last, but any of the free versions released under Trimble are not for commercial use, before 2018 you had to get the pro version to be able to generate profit using the program, in 2018 a new license was added, the today named Sketchup Go, which is cheaper than the pro license but it’s web based and lacks of some features of the pro like plug-ins and Layout.
This is ancient history but the first release SketchUp 8 was the last version in which commercial use of the free version was permitted under the EULA. If memory servies, that chaned with a mid-year update. Certainly commercial use of the free version of SketchUp 2013, the next version after SketchUp 8, is not permitted.
As I wrote before, you might as well stick with SketchUp 7 if that’s what you’ve got. There would be nothing for you to gain by switching to SketchUp 8 at this stage. The geo-location service and 3D Warehouse haven’t supported either version for nearly a decade. You won’t have access to Solid Tools or LayOut since those are Pro-only, so there’s really nothing different. And there are no legitimate sources for SketchUp 8 anymore.
Hope I am not crossing boundaries here.
2 things which always come up.
If you are using software for commercial purposes then morally if not always legally, you should pay for the use of the tools.
It is prudent business you don’t want to get busted legally, maybe pay a chunky fine or a lot worse.
If you are making money using software you can afford to pay for the use of the tools and should. If you cannot afford to pay for it but want to make money of it, that is poor business end of story.
I agree that some companies seem to charge for some products a lot more than perhaps the value seems to be worth, but they made it.
They got to eat as well.
There is one possible alternative for you I know of, and that is to learn Blender which is free and free to use commercially. Blender is unbelievably cool and there is an enormous range of free and paid for Add Ons for every possible use including getting things properly dimensioned and so forth.
That is a way out however, if you want to use SketchUp for commerce, then suck it up and go and pay for it.
Good luck.,
Hello everything is fine ? Apologies for the delay.
In a general summary, the question I raised in this post is which are the old versions of Sketchup that can be used for commercial purposes without causing problems with anything, both Free and Pro, because I have this question and decided to come here to answer this question to avoid doing wrong things.
And thank you very much for your return as well as others too…
Advice you get here is quite as reliable as any legal advice you get from users on a public software users’ forum. None of us are lawyers, and Trimble employees don’t answer legal questions. If you want reliable information you must pay for your lawyer to read the TOS of the software in question and interpret it for you.
I understand, but without wanting to cause any friction (in any way), since for example, the pro version of Sketchup 6, 7 and 8 is no longer supported, none of the old users of this software know how to inform what can or cannot, since Have they been using Sketchup for years? Because not everything is in the EULA. Thanks…
Pro version was never made available for free.
I guess the best free version you can use nowadays is Sketchup free 7.1, because if I can remember correctly, not only it was allowed for commercial use, but also was able to import dwg files into the free version.
If you manage to find an installer, that should be good and I believe where you download the software doesn’t actually make any difference from a legal standpoint because it was given away for free by Google more than 15 years ago… C’mon… I believe nowadays Google doesn’t give a s*it about a 15 yo free software… LOL
But of course I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my opinion, I could be wrong about this.
For more information, don’t ask users, ask legal advice. None of us here is a lawyer, especially a lawyer in your country, none of our legal advice will hold in court or litigation.
Now, google is also your friend. a quick Sketchup 8 EULA search gave this :