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Licensing

How you can use and redistribute our technology and documentation

Summary of Licenses by Material​

In July 2024, COSMIIC Inc, a B-corp formed to serve the COSMIIC ecosystem, finalized a license agreement with Case Western Reserve University. This non-exclusive agreement granted COSMIIC Inc the privilege to sublicense to the world all former intellectual property related to the COSMIIC System + new developments under the NIH SPARC HORNET program.

To ensure maximally permissive use of COSMIIC source files and documentation, we have chosen mixed license approach to licensing the different materials you will find on our webpages and GitHub. The licenses allow unrestricted development and commercial applications. All we ask of you is that you spread the word and provide attribution to COSMIIC. Below is a guide to our approach so that you can always understand how you are able to use our materials.

Hardware Source File Licensing - CERN-OHL-P-2.0​

Hardware-related files are licensed to open source users by COSMIIC under the CERN Open Hardware License - Permissive - v2 (CERN-OHL-P-2.0). Refer to the license text and user guide to understand your permissions.

All files of this category are hosted across COSMIIC GitHub repositories. This includes, but is not limited to...

  • Mechanical Design
    • 3D CAD Files (parts and assemblies, multiple file types)
    • Mechanical Drawings (parts and assemblies, mulitple file types)
  • PCB Design
    • Fabrication (Gerber and Drill files)
    • Assembly (Pick and Place, BOM)
    • Archive (Schematics, multiple file types)

Firmware and Software Source File Licensing - MIT​

Firmware and software files are licensed to open source users by COSMIIC under the MIT License. Refer to the license text to understand your permissions.

All files of this category are hosted across COSMIIC GitHub repositories. This includes, but is not limited to...

  • Firmware
    • Module source code (bootloaders and applications)
    • External wireless components source code
  • Software
    • API in Matlab
    • Assorted Matlab apps
    • Tools and processes, such as custom linters andGitHub Action workflows

Documentation Licensing - CC-BY-4.0​

Files containing documentation of the COSMIIC System and user ecosystem in supplement to the above listed filetypes are licensed to open source users by COSMIIC under the Creative Commons Attribution Only License (CC-BY-4.0). Refer to the license text to understand your permissions.

Note: Attribution is REQUIRED for sharing of documentation, modified or unmodified. In the case you are redistributing COSMIIC documentation, CC-BY-4.0 mandates that "You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made" (per legal code page).

These materials are mostly hosted on this site and cosmiic.org. This docs.cosmiic.org site is built using Markdown (.md) files and the Docusaurus tool through GitHub Actions in a COSMIIC GitHub repository. Files in the /docs/ folder of this repository are licensed under CC-BY-4.0. This includes, but is not limited to...

  • Documentation of system components and system architecture, .md and other archival file types
  • Test reports
  • Fabrication instructions
  • Software build instructions
  • Example documents
    • Example IDE
    • Example BEP