License

Source-available now, Apache 2.0 in four years.

Every CTXone release is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL-1.1). Exactly four years after the release date, that specific release automatically converts to Apache 2.0. You can read the source today, run it, fork it, send patches, and ship a modified version — with one caveat.

What you can do today

  • Read and modify the source. Every file in the monorepo is source-available from day one. Fork it, build it, run it in your own infrastructure.
  • Use it for work or personal use. Solo developers, teams, companies, startups — use CTXone however you want, for whatever you're building.
  • Run it on production systems. Self-host the Hub, embed it in internal tools, wire it into your AI coding pipeline, run it behind your VPN. All allowed.
  • Contribute back. PRs welcome. We merge improvements, attribute contributors in release notes, and don't ask for CLAs.

The one caveat (the "Additional Use Grant")

You can't resell CTXone as a managed memory service — i.e. charge other people to run CTXone on their behalf. That's the one competitive restriction, and it's what makes BSL-1.1 different from a pure permissive license.

Everything else is fine. Use CTXone as a component inside a larger product you sell; use it internally at a company; use it to build an AI coding tool; use it as infrastructure for your own SaaS. The only thing the license prevents is "hosted CTXone as a service" — which is the only commercial configuration where a third party could free-ride on our work at our expense.

The four-year auto-convert

Every release carries a "Change Date" four years in the future. On that date, the license for that release automatically converts to Apache 2.0 — no action required from us, no way for us to take it back.

So v0.72.0, released on April 15, 2026, will convert to Apache 2.0 on April 15, 2030. Every subsequent release has its own four-year clock. This means:

  • We can't pull the rug. Even if CTXone is acquired, dies, or pivots, every shipped release eventually becomes Apache 2.0.
  • You get a floor of guaranteed open-source code: at any given moment, the "Apache-2.0 today" subset of CTXone is some version from four years ago.
  • The restriction that prevents managed-service reselling only applies to versions younger than four years. Older versions are completely permissive.

Why not MIT / Apache from day one?

Because the obvious path for a tiny team building infrastructure in 2026 is: ship permissive, AWS ships a managed version, AWS captures the commercial upside, tiny team quietly dies, open source suffers. BSL-1.1 is the license designed specifically to prevent that failure mode without locking users out.

We believe the right balance is: real transparency (source-available from day one, no proprietary bits), real open source (Apache 2.0 on a fixed timeline), and a narrow competitive restriction (you can't sell us to ourselves). BSL-1.1 is designed exactly for that balance.

Read the full license

The canonical license text lives at LICENSE in the repo. Every source file also carries an SPDX identifier pointing at it.

Questions? Open a GitHub issue or email [email protected].