Stability and license

These are the commitments that do not change. They are written down so nobody has to trust our intentions, only our text.

Standing commitments#

Shipped versions keep their licenses, forever. Every version released under MIT stays MIT. Every version released under MIT-0 stays MIT-0. The last MIT release of each fenced package stays tagged and usable forever. Relicensing only ever applies forward, to new versions.

Each version’s terms are locked at its release. The terms of a version under the First Million Stays Yours License, including its MIT Conversion Date, are fixed in its LICENSE file the day it ships and never change. Future versions may ship under revised terms; revised terms apply only to those future versions, never retroactively.

Every version under the First Million Stays Yours License becomes plain MIT on a printed date. The conversion is automatic, unconditional, and irrevocable, and binds our successors and assigns. The window is 18 months per version today, and for future versions it will never exceed 24 months.

Nobody is ever stranded on abandoned code. If we go 12 consecutive months with no public release of a package and no security response to a responsibly reported vulnerability in it, or cease operations without a successor that assumes the license, every version of that package under the First Million Stays Yours License becomes MIT immediately. This is written into the license itself, not just here.

ClayJS and the page layer are MIT-0, forever. Everything that runs inside or alongside your HTML files, ClayJS and the in-page libraries, is MIT No Attribution: use it, copy it, remix it, ship it, no conditions, never fenced.

The file format belongs to everyone. The malleable document specification is CC0, and “malleable document” and the older “malleable HTML” are generic terms that nobody, including us, will ever register or own.

Is this open source? Not by the OSD, and we will not blur that. The fenced software is source available: the source is public, you can read every line, build from it, modify it, and self-host it. It becomes open source, plain MIT, on the printed date, per version.

One contingency, stated now so it never surprises anyone. A genuinely free standalone clone owes nothing under the First Million Stays Yours License, and we accept that. If a rebranded free host ever reaches serious scale, a narrow zero-price clause exists in a drawer and would ship only in a future major version, never retroactively. Nothing already shipped ever changes, under this or any other contingency.

Questions: license@hyperclay.com. Payment, program, and plain answers: https://hyperclay.com/host-program.

License#

First Million Stays Yours License, version 1.0. Copyright Hyperspace Systems LLC. SPDX identifier LicenseRef-First-Million-Stays-Yours-1.0, becoming MIT after the conversion date.

• Free to use, for anyone, for anything. Under the line you owe nothing and there is nothing to pay, report, register, or notify. Keep the copyright notice in copies and you are finished with the license.
• The fee applies only to products and services you supply that contain the software, derive from it, or provide its functionality to others by running it, and only to receipts above US $1,000,000 in a calendar year, aggregated across entities under common control. Where the software is one component of something larger, only the share fairly attributable to it counts.
• Crossing the line never makes the first million payable, never reaches back into an earlier year, and never ends the license.
• Every released version becomes plain MIT on a date printed in its own LICENSE file. For 1.7.0, released 2026-08-20, that date is 2028-02-20. The conversion is automatic, unconditional, and irrevocable, and binds successors and assigns. It also happens immediately if there is no public release and no security response for 12 consecutive months, or if the licensor ceases operations without a successor that assumes the license.
• Each version’s terms are locked at its release and never change. Revised terms apply only to future versions.
• Not open source by the OSD, and the project does not blur that. It is source available: read every line, build from it, modify it, self-host it. It becomes open source, plain MIT, on the printed date, per version.
• A free Coverage Certificate settles any question about whether a specific offering is covered: send a written description to license@hyperclay.com, and silence for 30 days accepts it as submitted.

ClayJS and the page layer are MIT-0, forever. Everything that runs inside or alongside your HTML files is MIT No Attribution, never fenced. The malleable document specification is CC0.

Plain answers and payment: https://hyperclay.com/host-program. Questions: license@hyperclay.com. The binding text is LICENSE in the repository; the standing commitments are STABILITY.md.