Erudior Engine license proposal

Nonbinding draft for rights-holder and legal review. Not adopted and not effective.

Publication grants no permissions and imposes no obligations. Using Erudior or displaying a splash does not accept or activate this proposal. Adoption requires a separate approved change.

This proposed custom source-available license outlines Engine reuse, startup attribution, and sharing modifications to distributed or publicly hosted versions. It is not an OSI-approved open-source license. Independent course content and learner records are excluded from its contribution-back requirement.

Read the draft in the GitHub repository and the licensing explanation. Read the separate third-party software notices; those materials retain their own terms. The licensing explanation lists the remaining ownership, contributor, trademark, compatibility and legal decisions.

Download the nonbinding draft text

ERUDIOR ENGINE SOURCE-AVAILABLE LICENSE — PROPOSED TEXT, NOT YET ADOPTED
Draft Version 0.2 — October 2026

NONBINDING PROPOSAL: NOT ADOPTED AND NOT EFFECTIVE.
Publication, review, use of Erudior, or display of a splash does not accept or activate these proposed terms. This draft grants no permissions and imposes no obligations. It does not replace any existing rights or third-party terms. Sections 1–10 below describe a possible future license only; adoption requires a separate rights-holder-approved, legally reviewed change identifying the covered materials, version and effective date.

IMPORTANT: This is a custom license, not an OSI-approved open-source license.
Legal review and confirmation of all copyright holders' rights are required before adoption.

1. DEFINITIONS
"Licensor" means the copyright holder(s) who authorize this License for their contributions to the Erudior Engine, as identified in applicable copyright notices.
"Engine" means the original Erudior application/lesson-engine software in this repository that the Licensor has the right to license under these terms, excluding Third-Party Materials and independently licensed content.
"Engine Modification" means a modification, adaptation, translation or derivative of Engine source code, including changes to its operation, course rendering, assessments, records, integration or user interface, but excluding independent course materials, datasets, documents or artwork that merely use the Engine's published interfaces.
"Covered Product" means an application, service, website or other distributed or publicly offered product incorporating or running the Engine or an Engine Modification.
"Main Engine Repository" means https://github.com/Aziliz/erudior or its officially announced successor.
"Third-Party Materials" means components, dependencies, media or other materials licensed by someone other than the Licensor under their own terms.

2. PERMISSION
Subject to compliance with this License, the Licensor grants a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free license subject to section 7 to use, copy, modify and redistribute the Engine and make Covered Products, in source and binary form. This license grants no ownership of the Engine, no patent rights beyond any rights required by applicable law, and no rights in Third-Party Materials.

3. REQUIRED STARTUP SPLASH AND ATTRIBUTION
For official Erudior releases, the proposed branding is the opening-book and teal star-bookmark splash, the ERUDIOR name, and "Learn without limits." Playback surfaces and timing follow the platform and accessibility guidance; this proposal does not require replay on every navigation or refresh.

Independent Covered Products with graphical startup experiences must display an accessible version of the same opening-book and teal star-bookmark motif, the independent product's own name, a readable "Powered by Erudior" credit linking to https://erudior.com, and a clear statement that the product is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Erudior. They must not use the official motto or presentation to suggest official status. Equivalent attribution in --about output or accompanying startup documentation applies to headless products.

The splash must respect reduced-motion accessibility and must not impose an artificial minimum wait before access to the product. Maintain required copyright and third-party notices. The illustrated variants and implementation guidance are documented in docs/SPLASH_AND_CONTRIBUTION_TERMS_DRAFT.md; visual implementation is not a substitute for these obligations.

4. ENGINE MODIFICATIONS MUST BE RETURNED
If you distribute a Covered Product containing an Engine Modification, or make it publicly accessible for interaction by users over a network, you must:
(a) make the complete corresponding source code of your Engine Modifications available under this License, including the changes and build instructions necessary to reproduce those modifications;
(b) submit those Engine Modifications to the Main Engine Repository through a pull request or, where pull requests are unavailable, through a publicly accessible source repository and a notice to the Maintainers describing the changes;
(c) make the submission no later than the first distribution or publicly accessible deployment and keep the corresponding source available while that modified version remains offered.
The Maintainers are not required to merge or accept a contribution. A good-faith, accessible submission satisfies the return requirement; private modifications that are never distributed or made accessible to third parties do not trigger this section.
Submissions must be original or properly licensed; you must not include secrets, personal information or third-party proprietary code. When an upstream change cannot legally be shared, you must obtain a separate license before distributing or offering that modified Engine version.

5. NOTICES AND SEPARATE WORKS
Keep this License and applicable copyright notices with copies or derivatives of the Engine, identify your modifications, and provide the corresponding source location in product documentation.
Independent courses, textbooks, exam questions, user data, student records, and assets authored through the Engine are not assigned to the Licensor and are not subject to the Engine Modification submission requirement merely because they use Erudior course formats.
Third-Party Materials remain governed by their original licenses. Nothing in this License overrides those licenses or grants rights the Licensor does not own.

6. TRADEMARKS
The Erudior name and official splash artwork may be used only to comply with the attribution obligation and to identify the Engine accurately. No broader trademark license, endorsement or sponsorship is granted. Do not imply that the Licensor has approved, accredited or certified your Covered Product.

7. TERMINATION AND REINSTATEMENT
Rights terminate upon a material violation that is not corrected within 30 days after written notice from the Licensor. On correction, the Licensor may reinstate rights in writing. Lawful recipients of copies remain subject to the terms applicable to their own use.

8. WARRANTY AND LIABILITY
THE ENGINE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. THE LICENSOR DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE LICENSOR IS NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

9. GOVERNING LAW AND SEVERABILITY
Applicable law governs enforceability. If a provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to the extent permissible.

10. ACCEPTANCE
Using, copying, modifying, distributing or operating the Engine pursuant to this grant constitutes acceptance of this License. If you do not agree, do not exercise permissions granted by this License.