How to Get an Exploitation License for Astrée

Astrée is not distributed as a free download. The official site lists a dedicated "Exploitation license of Astrée" section, which means commercial or operational use is handled through a licensing arrangement rather than a public package. To pursue a license, the practical starting point is the project contact page at https://www.astree.ens.fr/, since the tool is developed and maintained under CNRS, École Normale Supérieure (ENS), and INRIA. The site does not publish pricing, license tiers, or a self-service request form, so any specific terms must come from the team directly.

What the license covers

Astrée is a static analyzer that proves the absence of run-time errors (RTE) in C programs. Its intended use is on structured C code with complex memory usage but without dynamic memory allocation or recursion — the profile of synchronous, time-triggered, real-time, safety-critical embedded software. A license is therefore relevant if you need to apply the analyzer to production or industrial code, not just to read about the method.

The project's own history shows the scale of use a license is meant to support:

• In November 2003, Astrée automatically proved the absence of any RTE in the primary flight control software of the Airbus A340 fly-by-wire system — 132,000 lines of C analyzed in 1 h 20 on a 2.8 GHz 32-bit PC with 300 Mb of memory.
• From January 2004, it was extended to analyze the electric flight control code under development and test for the A380 series.

These results are cited on the site as unprecedented for static analysis of this class of software, which is the context in which an exploitation license would be sought.

Who to contact

The site names the following institutions behind the tool:

Project leadership listed on the page: Patrick Cousot (project leader), Radhia Cousot, Jérôme Feret, Antoine Miné, Xavier Rival. Former participants include Bruno Blanchet, David Monniaux, and Laurent Mauborgne.

The contact link given is https://www.astree.ens.fr/. Because the page provides no direct licensing email or form, use that entry point to reach the team and ask about exploitation terms.

What to prepare before you ask

Since the site does not state license conditions, be ready to describe your use case so the team can route your request. Useful details to include:

• The type of program you want to analyze (for example, synchronous control/command software in transportation, nuclear energy, medical instrumentation, aeronautics, or aerospace).
• Whether the code is written or automatically generated in C.
• Whether it avoids dynamic memory allocation and recursion, since Astrée targets structured C programs with those constraints.
• Your deployment context (industrial, research, or evaluation).

Practical notes

• There is no indication on the page that Astrée is free or open to unlicensed use; the existence of a separate exploitation-license section points the other way.
• No pricing signals, payment platforms, or license links appear in the available page material, so cost and terms cannot be inferred — they must be confirmed with the team.
• The contact URL is the only concrete channel the page supplies. Start there rather than looking for a download or checkout page.