Copyright © 2025 [Company] and individual contributors.
You may use, modify, and distribute the Work (defined below) only under the terms of this License.
Hey Developers! We developed RCCL with you in mind, and this license is our way of keeping it strong, innovative, and freely available for almost everything you do. Go ahead: use it for your personal projects, academic work, and even most commercial applications. Our goal is to empower you. The only time RCCL asks for something back is to ensure fairness and fuel the R&D that benefits everyone, including you. If you build a significant commercial service by deeply modifying and hosting our code, we simply ask that those awesome enhancements are merged back. This isn't about restriction; it's about shared success. It prevents 'strip-mining' where big players might exploit the core tech without giving back, dividng the community and stopping innovation. Let's build amazing things together, sustainably.
- Personal & Academic Use – Free forever. Keep this license notice.
- Business Use (non‑hosting) – If you modify the code either (a) upstream those changes within 18 months or (b) purchase a commercial licence. If you make no modifications, simply send a notice e‑mail.
- Commercial Hosting – You may host the unmodified Work by sending a notice e‑mail without paying any fees. If you modify the Work for your hosted service, you must upstream those modifications (licence‑fee option is not available).
(This summary is non‑binding; read the full terms below.)
This License uses the exclusive rights granted by copyright—and the patent grant below—to ensure that anyone who turns the Work into a paid, public cloud service must share their improvements back. Pure internal use and ordinary downstream consumption are always free of charge and never trigger the share-back duty. The goal is perpetual openness without inviting “strip-mining” by proprietary hosting providers.
- “Work” means the original work of authorship, including Source Code, Object Code, documentation, and configuration files, made available under this License.
- “Source Code” means the preferred form of the Work for making modifications.
- “Object Code” means any non-source form of the Work.
- “Contribution” means any original work of authorship intentionally submitted to the Licensor for inclusion in the Work.
- “Contributor” means the Licensor and each individual or legal entity that makes a Contribution.
- “Licensee” or “You” means any person or entity who receives the Work under this License.
- “Affiliated Group” means any entity controlling, controlled by, or under common control with Licensee, where control means ≥50 % voting power.
- “Commercial Hosting Service” means a network-accessible offering—whether for direct or indirect remuneration—that enables any person outside the Licensee’s Affiliated Group to interact with the Work or any Larger Work containing the Work.
- “Covered Modifications” means changes or additions made to the Work itself. Mere linking, containerisation, orchestration scripts, or inclusion of unmodified third-party components are not Covered Modifications (the Affiliated-Dependency Exception).
- “Necessary Claims” means all patent claims Licensor or Contributor can license that would be infringed by exercising the copyright licence granted here.
Subject to the conditions in § 3, each Contributor grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, irrevocable licence to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and Covered Modifications in both Source Code and Object Code form.
If You operate a Commercial Hosting Service that uses or incorporates the Work, You must comply with § 3.2–3.3. Running the Work solely for internal business operations (i.e., no third-party access) does not constitute a Commercial Hosting Service.
If You operate a Commercial Hosting Service that uses an unmodified copy of the Work, You may do so without charge or share-back provided that within thirty (30) days of first production use You send an e-mail to [email protected] identifying (a) the hosting entity’s legal name and (b) the public endpoint of the service.
You must make the Source Code for all Covered Modifications publicly available no later than eighteen (18) months after (a) first production use or (b) the date you first grant third-party access, whichever is sooner.
Covered Modifications must be licensed under (a) this License or (b) a later version released by the Licensor, and include (i) a prominent copy of this License, (ii) attribution to prior Contributors, and (iii) a notice describing the changes.
You may combine the Work with code licensed solely under Apache-2.0 or AGPL-3.0-only; such combination does not impose this License’s obligations on the independent portions licensed under those terms.
(a) If You make any Covered Modifications while using the Work solely for internal business operations, You must, within eighteen (18) months of first production use, either (i) satisfy §§ 3.2–3.3 (Share-back) or (ii) obtain a separate commercial licence from the Licensor.
(b) If You make no Covered Modifications and use the Work solely for internal business operations, no Share-back is required. You must, however, send an e-mail notice to [email protected] within thirty (30) days of first production use identifying the using legal entity and its principal place of business.
Each Contributor grants You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free licence under its Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and otherwise run, modify, and distribute the Work. Termination: This patent licence terminates automatically if You initiate patent litigation alleging that the Work or a Covered Modification infringes a patent.
This License does not grant permission to use Contributors’ names, trademarks, or logos, except as required for reasonable attribution.
- Automatic: Your rights under §§ 2–4 terminate immediately upon material breach of this License.
- Notice & cure: Before termination, a Contributor must give You 30 days’ written notice describing the breach. Your rights are reinstated automatically if You cure within that period, or permanently if the Contributor fails to notify.
- Survival: §§ 4, 6, 7, 8 survive termination.
THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY SHALL ANY CONTRIBUTOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND EVEN IF A REMEDY FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE.
- Choice of Law & Venue. This License is governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Exclusive jurisdiction and venue lie in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California.
- Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remainder of the License remains in effect.
- Entire Agreement. This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties concerning the Work and supersedes all prior licences to the Work.
- No Waiver. Failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of future enforcement.
- Versioning. The Licensor may publish new versions of this License. Once accepted by You, those later versions replace and supersede this version.
| Version | Date | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| 1.6-draft | 23 Jun 2025 | • Sharper Commercial Hosting Service definition • Internal-only carve-out • 18-month grace window • Patent peace + retaliation • Affiliated-Dependency Exception • Outbound compatibility rider • 30-day notice-and-cure • Choice-of-law (California) & severability |
End of License