Skip to content

Licence: adopt MIT-PoU (MIT plus a proof-of-usage condition for AI systems) - #13

Open
ebellumat wants to merge 2 commits into
GeekyAnts:masterfrom
ebellumat:proof-of-usage-licence
Open

Licence: adopt MIT-PoU (MIT plus a proof-of-usage condition for AI systems)#13
ebellumat wants to merge 2 commits into
GeekyAnts:masterfrom
ebellumat:proof-of-usage-licence

Conversation

@ebellumat

@ebellumat ebellumat commented Aug 16, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown

This adds a proof-of-usage condition to the licence, and the files that make it
work. Every MIT permission stays intact: use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, sell. Nothing is removed.

The condition: an automated system that trains on, indexes, embeds or derives output
from this repository records that it did, and credits the repository where it already
publishes credits — model card, about page, acknowledgements. No fee, no revenue share,
no restriction on what anyone builds with the code.

What is in the diff

File Why
LICENSE The condition itself.
AGENTS.md The file an automated system opens first, so the condition is stated where it will actually be read.
PROOF_OF_USAGE.md The register the condition refers to. Records are appended here.
proof-of-usage.json The same thing machine-readable, so npx proof-of-usage record finds where records go instead of guessing.
README section The human-facing explanation, at the bottom, under its own heading.

Records are taken as pull requests against master — this repository's default
branch. The format is Proof of Usage PoU/1.0,
which is specified independently of any licence.

Worth knowing before you decide

Adding an obligation to a permissive licence means the result is source-available, not
OSI open source
— Origami says so plainly in the licence's own README, and it is the
real cost of the condition. Some organisations refuse source-available dependencies and
some registries flag them. If that trade is not worth it here, the same request works
beside your existing licence as a plain NOTICE.md, which changes nothing legally and
keeps the project open source — npx proof-of-usage init writes that variant instead.
Happy to convert this PR to that shape if you prefer it.

Disclosure: I am affiliated with Origami, which authored MIT-PoU. I am proposing it
here because I use this project, not on anyone's behalf.

Relicensing needs the agreement of the copyright holders and any contributors whose work
is still present — that call is entirely yours, and closing this is a perfectly fine
answer.

@ebellumat
ebellumat force-pushed the proof-of-usage-licence branch from 391ed19 to b436cb5 Compare August 16, 2026 01:02
AGENTS.md is the file an automated system opens first, so the condition is
stated there. PROOF_OF_USAGE.md is the register the licence refers to.
proof-of-usage.json makes the whole thing machine-readable, so
`npx proof-of-usage record` can find where records go without guessing.
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant