Licensing¶

ModelMRI is open core. The application — the server, the runtime, the CLI, the app, and every instrument and analysis method in it — is free software under AGPL-3.0-only. The pieces meant to live inside your software — modelmri-record, modelmri-policy, the npx modelmri shim and the .mri codec — are Apache-2.0, so they carry no copyleft into your product. These docs are CC-BY-4.0. ModelMRI Cloud / Enterprise, the hosted and managed product, is proprietary and is not in the repository.

The authoritative version of this page, with the path-by-path table, is LICENSING.md in the repository, and the license texts are in LICENSES/. This page explains; it is not legal advice, and where it and a license text disagree, the license text governs.

What is under which license¶

	License
The application: `modelmri/` — server, runtime, CLI, every instrument and analysis method — and `frontend/` — the app, the live demo, the `.mri` viewer — with `tests/` and `scripts/`	AGPL-3.0-only
`modelmri-record`, `modelmri-policy`, the `npx modelmri` shim, the `.mri` codec (`session.py`, `receipts.py`, `errors.py`, `fmt.py`, `paths.py`), and `examples/**`	Apache-2.0
The documentation and its media; code samples in the docs may also be used under Apache-2.0	CC-BY-4.0
ModelMRI Cloud / Enterprise — managed compute, hosted execution, collaboration, enterprise administration	proprietary, not in the repository

The commitment¶

ModelMRI does not charge for access to diagnostic or research methods. Every instrument and analysis method — including advanced and future ones such as SAE training, AutoSteer, autonomous investigation, causal and circuit analysis, model diffing, evals, agent tracing, vision/VLM, robotics/VLA and security scanning — ships in ModelMRI Community, and anyone with their own hardware can run it. What ModelMRI sells is operating, scaling, and organizing those methods: managed compute, hosted execution, collaboration, and enterprise administration. No capability that has shipped in Community will be moved behind a paywall.

What this means for you¶

I run ModelMRI on my machine, or on my cluster. No obligations. Use it for anything, commercial work included, at any scale. The AGPL's conditions attach to distributing the software and to letting other people use a modified version over a network; running the software is neither.

I modified ModelMRI and let other people use my modified version over a network. Section 13 of the AGPL applies: offer those users the source of your modified version, under the AGPL — or take a commercial license instead (two cases down). Running an unmodified ModelMRI for other people adds no such obligation; the source they could ask for is the repository.

I import modelmri-record, modelmri-policy or the .mri codec into my product. Apache-2.0: use it, change it, ship it under your own license, no copyleft. Writing .mri files from your own tool, or reading them, is the same case — the format and its codec are meant to be used everywhere.

I want to embed or redistribute the application under my own terms. A commercial license exists for that. Commercial licensing and support are available — open a GitHub issue titled commercial licensing and the maintainer will follow up privately.

Versions before this change¶

ModelMRI was MIT-licensed from its first commit up to the commit tagged mit-final. Everything distributed before that keeps its MIT terms for anyone who has it: modelmri up to and including 0.12.0, modelmri-record up to and including 0.1.4, the modelmri npm shim 0.0.1, and every commit up to the tag. History is not rewritten. AGPL-3.0-only applies to modelmri from 0.13.0, and Apache-2.0 to modelmri-record from 0.2.0.

Contributors¶

You keep your copyright. The contributor terms are in CLA.md in the repository — a Contributor License Agreement that is a license, not an assignment, and that promises your accepted work stays available under the Community license. It is a draft until counsel has reviewed it and is not in force; until it is, the rule in CONTRIBUTING.md applies: a contribution is licensed under the license of the files it changes.

Why AGPL, and for how long¶

AGPL is a current strategy, not an ideology. It keeps every method public while making a hosted, modified ModelMRI something its operator has to share back — the one arrangement that would otherwise let someone sell this project's own work against it. We will reconsider the Community license with evidence: adoption, contributor experience, and what the license costs the people who use it. Whatever the outbound license becomes, accepted contributions remain open under the license they were contributed under; the CLA says so in writing.