Subnet Software
Subnet Software is Open Source
All Subnet is software is and will be 100% open source. Being open source allows anyone to review the security and correctness of the Subnet software components so users and service providers don't need to trust any organization when installing Subnet software on their computers. Subnet is also built in an open source model on Github.
All Subnet software, specifications, documentations, algorithms and protocols are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Subnet Software is Not Yet Free Software
Subnet software is designed built by the Subnet DAO. Subnet software, specifications and protocols are currently not licensed as free open source software. All Subnet software, specifications and protocols currently is current licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license prohibits commercial use.
This decision was made to prevent other entities from launching an Subnet clone before the platform is ready for commercial use in order to quickly enrich themselves without rewarding the Subnet DAO and open source developers. Unfortunately, this happens often in free open source projects.
Non-commercial derivative work is still permitted and encouraged under the creative commons license, so open source developers may freely experiment with the technology and use it in a non-commercial way.
As the project is very young and many of its aspects are still rapidly evolving, we feel that this licensing policy is the right choice for the project as it gives the Subnet DAO maximum flexibly in commercializing the technology. This licensing policy is likely to change in the future once the platform gets closer to launching a working commercial product and the Subnet cryptocurrency.
Longer term, it is our goal to make Subnet fully free open source software by changing Subnet software licenses to more permissive free open source licenses, so anyone will be able launch a commercial Subnet network.