augmanitai

AUGMANITAI Dual-License Summary

AUGMANITAI uses a dual-license scheme that separates the terminology data from the tooling code:

Component	License	SPDX Identifier
Terminology data (terms, relations, definitions, translations, ontology files)	Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International	`CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0`
Code (Python package, NPM package, MCP server, API, GraphRAG scripts, deployment configs)	Apache License 2.0	`Apache-2.0`
Selected utility snippets (optional)	MIT License	`MIT`

The combined SPDX expression for the project is:

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0 AND Apache-2.0

Why Dual-License?

The data is scholarly output. It is the curated result of a longitudinal n=1 terminology observation and a priority-establishing deposit on Zenodo. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 protects the editorial integrity of the compendium: others may cite and reference individual terms freely, but they cannot fork the compendium, relabel it, or commercialize derivatives without a separate agreement.

The code is infrastructure. It is the plumbing that makes the data queryable, validatable, and integrable into other systems. Apache 2.0 maximizes adoption: anyone — commercial or non-commercial — can build on the code without friction, which accelerates the reach of the data underneath.

This is the same pattern used by other data-centric open projects (Wikidata’s code is Apache/GPL, the data itself is CC0; many academic datasets pair restrictive data licenses with permissive code licenses).

What This Means for You

If you are a researcher or academic

You can use AUGMANITAI freely for research, teaching, and publication:

Cite individual terms in papers (with attribution)
Build academic tools on top of AUGMANITAI code (Apache 2.0)
Train research models on AUGMANITAI data (non-commercial AI training requires prior written permission)
Publish results that reference AUGMANITAI terms

If you are an open-source developer

You can integrate AUGMANITAI into your open-source projects:

Use the Python/NPM packages under Apache 2.0
Use the code freely; contribute improvements back
Reference terms by URI in your own knowledge graph
Cannot redistribute modified term definitions under the AUGMANITAI name

If you are a commercial user

Most commercial uses of AUGMANITAI require a separate license:

Using AUGMANITAI code in your product is permitted under Apache 2.0
Using AUGMANITAI data in a commercial product is NOT permitted without a commercial license
Commercial AI training on AUGMANITAI data is NOT permitted without a commercial license
Please contact the author for commercial licensing terms (see below)

How to Attribute

Every use of AUGMANITAI — commercial or non-commercial — must include attribution:

AUGMANITAI Terminology Compendium
by Andreas Ehstand (ORCID 0009-0006-3773-7796)
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20161494
Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (data) and Apache 2.0 (code)
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20161494

For academic citation, use the BibTeX entry shipped in the root of this repository (CITATION.cff and references.bib).

Commercial Licensing

For commercial use of AUGMANITAI terminology data, please contact the author through the GitHub repository’s security contact (see ../governance/SECURITY.md for the current private contact channel). Commercial licensing negotiations will consider:

The intended use case
The scope of integration (lookup only vs. derivation)
The commercial scale (internal tool vs. external product)
Whether the licensing fee should be a one-time payment, an annual subscription, or a revenue share
Whether the licensee is willing to contribute back improvements under the project’s governance

There is no off-the-shelf commercial license schedule yet; each commercial inquiry is negotiated individually.

License Compatibility Notes

AUGMANITAI code (Apache 2.0) is compatible with GPLv3 (as a source), but NOT with GPLv2. If you are integrating into a GPLv2-only project, please contact us.
AUGMANITAI data (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) is NOT compatible with copyleft licenses like GPL or CC BY-SA for the purpose of combining into a derived dataset. You may however use both in the same project as independent components.
The Creative Commons organization has stated that CC BY-NC-ND is NOT a “free cultural works” license. AUGMANITAI data is intentionally NOT a free cultural work — it is a curated scholarly reference, protected editorially.

Provenance and Integrity

Every release of AUGMANITAI is:

Published to Zenodo with a version-specific DOI (under the concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20161494)
Git-tagged and GPG/Sigstore-signed
Accompanied by an SPDX manifest and CycloneDX AI-SBOM (see ../provenance/ai-sbom/)
Covered by a C2PA content-credentials manifest (see ../provenance/c2pa/)
Asserted via W3C Verifiable Credentials (see ../provenance/w3c-vc/)

These mechanisms allow downstream users to verify the integrity and authorship of the data they use.

Questions?

See ../governance/CONTRIBUTING.md and ../governance/GOVERNANCE.md for general questions. For licensing-specific questions, open a GitHub Issue with the licensing label (for public questions) or use the private contact channel in ../governance/SECURITY.md (for commercial inquiries or sensitive matters).

Bound by the Ethical Disclaimer §1–§20 (DISCLAIMER.md) and the repository licenses (LICENSE). Contact and provider: IMPRESSUM.md.

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