Zer0pa Source-Available License v6.2
Licensor: Zer0pa (Pty) Ltd, Republic of South Africa
SPDX Identifier: LicenseRef-Zer0pa-SAL-6.2
Canonical URL: https://github.com/Zer0pa/ZPE-License-Commercial
License Date: 04 March 2026
Effective Date: the date of first public release of the Software under this License, as recorded
in the Licensor’s public release metadata or version control tag
Preamble
This License governs use of the Software and the Protected Architecture described in the
Originating Publication. The Protected Architecture is the product of original scientific
research and engineering by the Licensor, including the empirical discovery that certain
primitive configurations — notably the Compass-8 (P8) canonical profile, selected by the
Licensor’s gate contract and ablation evidence as exhibiting unique optimality properties
among tested configurations — provide an efficient and stable basis for multimodal
information encoding. ZPE is an N-primitive directional encoding family; Compass-8 (P8) is
the canonical profile. Other profiles exist for specialised conditions, but changes in N are
treated as profile variants within the same Protected Architecture — not as independent
inventions. The Licensor grants broad rights to individuals, researchers, open-source projects,
and small organisations while requiring commercial entities above the Revenue Threshold to
obtain a separate Commercial License. This License is not an open-source license as defined
by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). This License is a source-available license with delayed
open-source conversion. This License is intended to interoperate with the Originating
Publication (the defensive disclosure); definitions, claim scope, and evidence
references are aligned across both documents.
1. Definitions
“Licensor” means Zer0pa (Pty) Ltd, Republic of South Africa, including any successor
entity or assignee of the intellectual property covered by this License.
“Software” means the source code, object code, binaries, documentation, test suites,
validation artifacts, configuration files, and all associated materials made available by the
Licensor under this License, in each case including any portion thereof.
“Originating Publication” means the scientific paper titled “Zero Point Encoding (ZPE):
An N-Primitive Directional Encoding Family for Multimodal Information Transport —
Defensive Disclosure and Prior-Art Record” (or any substantially similar title under which
the same work is posted) by the Licensor (preprint or peer-reviewed publication, as identified by its digital object identifier, persistent identifier, or first-publication date assigned by the hosting platform for that work), together with all supplementary
materials, appendices, and errata published by the Licensor in connection with that paper, and
any subsequent peer-reviewed publication or revision of the same work.
“Protected Architecture” means the information encoding architecture first disclosed in the
Originating Publication, including any Substantially Similar Implementation thereof, whether
or not derived from the Software. The Protected Architecture encompasses a family of N-
primitive directional encoding systems (N ≥ 2) and all profile variants thereof. Specifically,
Protected Architecture includes any system, method, process, algorithm, protocol, or data
structure that:
1. encodes, compresses, transmits, stores, or reconstructs information across one or more
sensory, perceptual, or abstract modalities using a finite lattice, set, or vocabulary of
N directional primitives (where N ≥ 2), including the Compass-8 (P8, N = 8)
canonical profile — which the Licensor’s empirical research, gate contract, and
ablation evidence have identified as exhibiting unique optimality properties among
tested configurations — and any other value of N. A change in N constitutes a profile
variant within the Protected Architecture, not an independent invention. The Protected
Architecture encompasses the entire N ≥ 2 family regardless of the specific geometric,
algebraic, or topological space in which the primitives are defined;
2. employs a unified transport word, packet, frame, or envelope structure that routes
encoded primitives across modality families via shared type-bit fields, mode fields,
lane identifiers, channel tags, or any functionally equivalent routing logic;
3. applies geometric directional steps — whether as literal spatial movements on a
lattice, grid, or manifold, or as symbolic, temporal, spectral, or abstract directional
codebooks over non-spatial domains — to encode, compress, quantize, transmit, or
reconstruct heterogeneous data types within a unified framework. Without limitation,
this includes applying the geometric primitive approach to: text, emoji, diagram,
image, music, voice, mental-state, touch, smell, taste, ink/handwriting, financial time-
series, geospatial trajectory, motion capture, neurological spike-timing, robotics
control, video, prosody, extended reality (XR), biosignal/wearable, Internet of Things
(IoT) sensor telemetry, and any other data domain;
4. combines two or more of the above elements in a system that achieves multimodal
information encoding through a shared geometric primitive basis;
5. constitutes a Substantially Similar Implementation of any of the above, as defined
below.
“Primitive Profile” means a specific instantiation of the Protected Architecture characterised
by (i) the number of directional primitives N, (ii) the primitive basis and any symmetry,
topology, or geometry assumptions, (iii) the routing and packing rules within the transport
envelope, and (iv) the versioned compatibility vector. Compass-8 (P8) is the canonical
Primitive Profile. Other Primitive Profiles (e.g., P5, P7, P12, P64, D6_12) are variants within
the Protected Architecture and are not independent inventions. Each Primitive Profile has a
status: CANONICAL (shipping), RESEARCH (experimental), or DEPRECATED (kept for
provenance only).
“Substantially Similar Implementation” means any system that achieves the same
functional purpose and employs the same core mechanism as the Protected Architecture, as
determined by a Functional Equivalence Test. A system is Substantially Similar if it satisfies
all three of the following criteria:
1. Purpose equivalence: The system encodes, compresses, routes, or reconstructs
multimodal information;
2. Mechanism equivalence: The system uses a finite set of directional, orientational, or
geometric primitives as its fundamental encoding vocabulary, regardless of the
number of primitives (N), the Primitive Profile, the coordinate system, the naming
convention, the dimensionality of the space, the mathematical formalism used to
describe them, or the number of concurrent directional profiles (e.g., a system using
both an 8-primitive and a 12-primitive profile simultaneously); and
3. Architecture equivalence: The system uses a shared primitive basis and a unified
transport mechanism across multiple modality types.
For the avoidance of doubt, the following variations do not constitute independent inventions
and remain within the scope of Protected Architecture:
1. changing the number of primitives (e.g., from the empirically optimal P8 canonical
profile to 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 16, 64, or any other N), whether to a value that produces
superior, equivalent, or inferior performance — such changes constitute Primitive
Profile variants, not independent inventions;
2. changing the coordinate system (e.g., from Cartesian to polar, hexagonal, spherical,
hyperbolic, or any other);
3. reformulating the primitive set as rotations, quaternions, group elements, basis
vectors, or any mathematically equivalent representation;
4. changing the names, labels, identifiers, or encoding of the primitives;
5. changing the bit-width, word length, or packet structure of the transport envelope;
6. substituting equivalent mathematical operations (e.g., rotation matrices for direction
vectors, Fourier coefficients for directional steps);
7. applying the architecture to modalities, data domains, or vertical applications not
explicitly described in the Originating Publication, including but not limited to:
financial time-series (OHLCV, tick data), geospatial trajectories (GPS, AIS,
autonomous vehicle paths), motion capture (joint angles, skeletal poses), neurological
data (spike trains, EEG, BCI signals), robotics control (joint states, ROS bag streams),
video frames and temporal sequences, prosodic and paralinguistic features, extended
reality (XR) spatial tracking, biosignals (ECG, PPG, IMU, EDA), wearable sensor
fusion streams, and IoT sensor telemetry;
8. implementing the architecture in a different programming language, hardware
description language, or on different hardware (including FPGA, ASIC,
neuromorphic, or edge processors);
9. combining the architecture with other techniques (e.g., neural network layers,
compression algorithms, error correction codes, run-length encoding uplift, delta
encoding, prediction filters, or domain-specific signal conditioning);
10. expressing the directional codebook as a learned embedding, lookup table, or
parameterised function rather than as explicit compass directions;
11. adapting the transport envelope word length, mode-bit partition, or type-bit routing
scheme to accommodate different payload sizes, modality counts, or version profiles;
12. using the architecture as a tokenization, subword segmentation, or vocabulary
construction method for language model training, fine-tuning, or inference.
“Functional Equivalence Test” means the three-part test set out in the definition of
Substantially Similar Implementation above.
“You” (or “Your”) means the individual, autonomous agent, AI system, or legal entity
accepting this License, including any entity on whose behalf You act.
“Your Company” means any legal entity, sole proprietorship, or organisation that You work
for, act on behalf of, or direct, plus all organisations that have Control over, are under the
Control of, or are under common Control with that organisation. “Control” means ownership
of more than 50 percent of the outstanding voting securities of an entity, or the power to
direct the management and policies of an entity by contract or otherwise. Control may be
direct or indirect.
“Annual Gross Revenue” means the total consolidated gross revenue of You and Your
Company during the most recently completed fiscal year, calculated on a consolidated basis
across all entities within the meaning of Your Company, regardless of the source of that
revenue.
“Revenue Threshold” means USD $100,000,000 (one hundred million United States Dollars) in
Annual Gross Revenue.
“Commercial License” means a separate written license agreement executed between You
(or Your Company) and the Licensor, available from architects@zer0pa.ai.
“Hosted or Managed Service” means any deployment of the Software, any implementation
of the Protected Architecture, or any Substantially Similar Implementation, where a third
party accesses features or functionality thereof over a network, without receiving a copy of
the underlying source code. Without limitation, Hosted or Managed Service includes:
software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings; application programming interface (API) access;
hosted inference endpoints; managed tokenization, encoding, or transcoding services;
platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings incorporating the Protected Architecture; internal
service bureau or shared-platform deployments that provide functionality to customers,
partners, or unaffiliated entities of Your Company; and any arrangement where a third party
receives the functional benefit of the Software or Protected Architecture through network
access, regardless of whether the third party interacts directly with the Software or through an
intermediary layer, wrapper, adapter, or gateway. A deployment qualifies as a Hosted or
Managed Service regardless of whether access is offered for a fee, bundled with other
services, or provided at no charge.
“Production Use” means any use of the Software or Protected Architecture that directly or
indirectly generates, supports, or enables revenue for You or any entity that benefits from
Your operations, or any use in a customer-facing, commercially deployed, or mission-critical
context. Internal development, testing, academic research, non-commercial evaluation, and
personal projects are not Production Use, provided they do not generate external revenue or
serve external customers.
“Open Source Project” means a project whose complete source code is made available to
the public under an OSI-approved open-source license and which does not itself require a
Commercial License for use.
“Contribution” means any source code, documentation, data, test, or other material
submitted to the Licensor for inclusion in the Software.
“Technical Dossier” means the engineering and scientific reference document titled “ZPE
Technical Dossier” (or any successor title) published by the Licensor in the Software
repository or separately, together with all versioned snapshots thereof. As of the License
Date, the current snapshot is Version 4.8, dated 2026-02-24. The Technical Dossier is part of
the Software for all purposes under this License.
“Evidence Index” (also, “Canonical Evidence Materials”) means the Licensor-published,
versioned index that identifies the canonical locations (including repository paths, release
URLs, or other stable locators) of Evidence Bundles and related verification materials,
together with the associated integrity hashes, manifests, handoff manifests, and compatibility
vectors (and any documented environment, platform, or dependency compatibility vectors)
published by the Licensor for purposes of validation, reproducibility, provenance, and
integrity checking. As of the License Date, the Evidence Index is maintained as per-
workstream JSON files (e.g., ZPE-IMC-EVIDENCE_INDEX.json) in the license and evidence
repository (github.com/Zer0pa/ZPE-License-Commercial) and/or the primary workstream
repository (github.com/Zer0pa/ZPE-IMC),
together with RUN_MANIFEST.json files for Comet-tracked execution runs. The Evidence
Index is part of the Software for all purposes under this License.
“Evidence Bundles” means the reproducible artifact packages distributed by the Licensor as
part of the Software, including lane baseline results, external comparator results, falsification
campaign outputs, regression test results, gate scorecards, handoff manifests, compatibility
vectors, and any integrity hashes or manifests published by the Licensor in connection with
the foregoing. Evidence Bundles are part of the Software for all purposes under this License.
“Change Date” means the date three (3) years after the date of first public release of each
specific version of the Software, as recorded in the version’s release metadata or version
control tag.
2. Acceptance
2.1 This License is a binding legal agreement between You and the Licensor. You accept this
License by any of the following acts:
1. downloading the Software;
2. copying any portion of the Software;
3. using the Software in any manner;
4. distributing the Software or any derivative work;
5. incorporating the Software into any product, service, or system, or incorporating the
Protected Architecture into any product, service, or system following Substantive Prior Access (as
defined in Section 4.4.1(d)) to the Software, the Originating Publication, or materials
referencing this License;
6. clicking “I accept” or equivalent in any installation, download, or access interface
provided by the Licensor;
7. any other act that, under applicable law, constitutes acceptance of the terms of a
license agreement.
2.2 If You do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this License, You must not
download, copy, use, or distribute the Software. If You have already downloaded a copy,
You must destroy it.
2.3 For avoidance of doubt, the mere act of reading the Originating Publication (the defensive disclosure preprint) does not by itself constitute acceptance of this License. However, any subsequent use,
download, or incorporation of the Software or Protected Architecture following such reading
is subject to this License.
3. Grant of Rights
Subject to the limitations and conditions of this License, the Licensor grants You a non-
exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, non-sublicensable, non-transferable license to:
1. use, copy, and distribute the Software;
2. prepare and distribute derivative works of the Software;
3. make the Software available to third parties;
4. study, analyse, benchmark, and evaluate the Software and the Protected Architecture;
in each case solely as permitted by the conditions in Section 4 below.
4. Conditions and Limitations
4.1 Hosted or Managed Service Restriction
You may not provide the Software, any implementation of the Protected Architecture, or any
Substantially Similar Implementation to third parties as a Hosted or Managed Service without
obtaining a Commercial License from the Licensor. This restriction applies regardless of
whether the service is offered for free or for a fee, and regardless of whether it constitutes the
primary or ancillary function of the service.
4.2 Revenue Threshold and Commercial License Requirement
If Your Annual Gross Revenue exceeds the Revenue Threshold, You must obtain a
Commercial License from the Licensor before:
1. using the Software or any implementation of the Protected Architecture in any
Production Use;
2. offering any Hosted or Managed Service incorporating the Software or Protected
Architecture;
3. distributing the Software or any derivative work in connection with a commercial
product or service;
4. incorporating the Software, Protected Architecture, or any Substantially Similar
Implementation into any product, platform, service, or system that You or Your
Company offers commercially.
This requirement applies regardless of whether Your use of the Software or Protected
Architecture is the source of any portion of Your Annual Gross Revenue.
This requirement does not apply to:
1. non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and government-funded research
institutions, provided such use is not for commercial production deployment or
commercial revenue generation;
2. Open Source Projects distributed under OSI-approved licenses, provided the project
itself does not require a Commercial License and is not maintained or funded
primarily by an entity exceeding the Revenue Threshold;
3. internal evaluation, academic research, development, and testing that does not
constitute Production Use;
4. individuals and organisations whose Annual Gross Revenue does not exceed the
Revenue Threshold.
4.3 Revenue Threshold Compliance
4.3.1 Self-Certification. Upon written request by the Licensor (no more than once per
calendar year), You must provide a written certification signed by an authorised officer of
Your Company, within thirty (30) days of such request, stating either:
1. that Your Annual Gross Revenue does not exceed the Revenue Threshold, together
with the fiscal year to which the certification relates; or
2. that Your Annual Gross Revenue exceeds the Revenue Threshold, and specifying
whether You have obtained or intend to obtain a Commercial License.
4.3.2 Record Retention. If You certify that Your Annual Gross Revenue does not exceed the
Revenue Threshold, You must retain financial records sufficient to substantiate that
certification for a period of three (3) years from the date of certification.
4.3.3 Verification. If the Licensor has a reasonable, good-faith belief that Your Annual Gross
Revenue exceeds the Revenue Threshold — based on publicly available information, Your
own disclosures, or other credible evidence — the Licensor may request that You engage a
mutually agreed independent auditor, at the Licensor’s cost, to verify Your Annual Gross
Revenue solely for the purpose of determining whether the Revenue Threshold is exceeded.
If the audit reveals that the Revenue Threshold is exceeded, You shall bear the reasonable
cost of the audit and shall promptly obtain a Commercial License. This right may be
exercised no more than once per calendar year and is subject to reasonable confidentiality
protections.
4.3.4 Failure to Certify. If You fail to provide a certification within the thirty (30) day
period specified in Section 4.3.1, the Licensor shall send a single written reminder notice. If
You fail to provide the requested certification within fifteen (15) days of the reminder notice
(or such longer period as the Licensor may grant at its discretion upon reasonable request),
Your use of the Software shall be deemed Production Use by an entity exceeding the
Revenue Threshold until such time as You provide the requested certification. For avoidance
of doubt, the deeming consequence applies prospectively from the expiry of the reminder
period and does not retroactively affect use prior to the original certification request.
4.4 Scope of Protected Architecture — Public Notice
4.4.1 You acknowledge and agree that the Protected Architecture as defined in Section 1
constitutes original intellectual work of the Licensor, first publicly disclosed in the
Originating Publication. By accepting this License pursuant to Section 2:
1. You accept that any implementation of the Protected Architecture — including any
Substantially Similar Implementation, whether derived from the Software or
independently developed — by an entity that has accepted this License and is subject
to Section 4.2, requires a Commercial License;
2. You accept that the Functional Equivalence Test, not source code similarity, is the
operative test for determining whether a system falls within the scope of the Protected
Architecture;
3. You accept that the Originating Publication, together with any public technical
disclosures by the Licensor that reference the Protected Architecture and this License,
serve as public notice of the Licensor’s claims with respect to the Protected
Architecture, and that any entity with knowledge of the Originating Publication, such
disclosures, or this License is on notice of those claims;
4. You accept that, in any dispute between the Licensor and You or Your Company, if
You or Your Company has downloaded, forked, executed, deployed, incorporated, or
otherwise made substantive use of the Software, the Originating Publication, or any
materials referencing or describing the Protected Architecture that include a reference
to this License
(collectively, “Substantive Prior Access”), any Substantially Similar Implementation by
You or Your Company shall be presumed to derive from the Protected Architecture,
and the burden of proving independent and non-infringing development shall rest on
You. This presumption applies to Your Company as a whole if any employee,
contractor, advisor, or agent of Your Company has had Substantive Prior Access, regardless of
whether the specific individuals who had Substantive Prior Access were involved in the
development of the Substantially Similar Implementation. This presumption is
rebuttable: You may overcome it by demonstrating, through contemporaneous written
documentation, that the Substantially Similar Implementation was developed through
a documented independent-development or clean-room process in which no person
with Substantive Prior Access participated in, directed, supervised, or reviewed the design or
implementation of the Substantially Similar Implementation. The absence of such
contemporaneous documentation shall weigh against any claim of independent
development.
4.4.2 For avoidance of doubt: this Section 4.4 creates contractual obligations binding on
parties who have accepted this License under Section 2. It does not purport to create binding
obligations on third parties who have never accessed the Software and have never accepted
this License. However, the Licensor reserves all rights available under applicable law —
including, without limitation, rights arising from defensive publication, prior art, trademark,
trade dress, and the law of unjust enrichment — with respect to any third party’s use of the
Protected Architecture.
4.5 Anti-Circumvention
You may not:
1. alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or attribution notices in the
Software;
2. move, change, disable, or circumvent any license key or access-control functionality
in the Software;
3. remove or obscure any functionality in the Software that is controlled by license keys;
4. structure a transaction, corporate arrangement, or series of arrangements the purpose
or effect of which is to avoid the Revenue Threshold or Commercial License
requirement;
5. use the Software or Protected Architecture through an intermediary, subsidiary,
contractor, or agent for the purpose of circumventing the restrictions in this License;
6. create, distribute, or operate a Substantially Similar Implementation for the purpose of
enabling third parties to avoid obtaining a Commercial License;
7. engage, contract, or otherwise arrange for a third party to create, develop, or operate a
Substantially Similar Implementation on Your behalf or for Your benefit, where You
or Your Company exercises management control over, provides funding for, or
derives commercial benefit from the Implementation, regardless of the third party’s
own Annual Gross Revenue;
8. implement a Substantially Similar Implementation while taking measures to obscure
or obfuscate the relationship to the Protected Architecture, including through
renaming, mathematical reformulation, obfuscation of provenance, or claims of
independent discovery where Substantive Prior Access exists;
9. claim that a change of Primitive Profile (including a change in N) constitutes an
independent invention or removes the implementation from the scope of the Protected
Architecture.
4.6 Attribution and Notices
Any distribution of the Software or derivative work must:
1. retain all copyright notices, attribution notices, and a complete copy of this License or
a working link to its Canonical URL;
2. include a prominent notice in any modified copies stating that You have modified the
Software and the date of modification;
3. include a citation to the Originating Publication in any academic, scientific, or
technical publication that describes, evaluates, or builds upon the Protected
Architecture.
4.7 Provenance and Integrity
When distributing, publicly referencing, or making available the Technical Dossier, Evidence
Bundles, the Evidence Index, or any claimed “ZPE-compatible” or “ZPE-derived”
implementation, You must:
1. retain all integrity hashes, manifests, attribution notices, and provenance metadata
published by the Licensor, including as set out in the Evidence Index;
2. clearly and prominently mark any modifications You have made to the Technical
Dossier, Evidence Bundles, or the Evidence Index, including the date, nature, and
author of each modification;
3. not selectively remove, alter, or suppress failing, INCONCLUSIVE, or adverse test
results or evidence artifacts (including by altering the Evidence Index in a manner that
misrepresents what the Licensor published) in a manner that misrepresents the
completeness or accuracy of the original Evidence Bundles;
4. not present modified benchmark results, gate outcomes, or evidence artifacts as
unmodified originals or as “baseline” results without clearly stating the nature and
extent of the divergence from the Licensor’s published originals, and not make any
public claim of “ZPE-compatible,” “ZPE-derived,” “ZPE-IMC compatible,” or
functionally equivalent compatibility/derivation claim unless such claim is objectively
substantiated by reference to the Evidence Index for the relevant interface/version,
and either (i) a reproducible build and test procedure that produces outputs matching
the Licensor’s published compatibility vectors and integrity hashes (as identified in
the Evidence Index), or (ii) a clear, prominent description of the precise points of
deviation, including which compatibility vectors, hashes, manifests, gates, or metrics
(as identified in the Evidence Index) differ;
5. when claiming compatibility with or derivation from a specific Primitive Profile (e.g.,
P8, P12), specify both the Primitive Profile identifier and the contract version (e.g.,
“ZPE-compatible: P8 / wave1.0”) and comply with the substantiation requirements of
subsection (d) above;
6. when referencing the IMC integration contract, use the canonical authority point
(total_words=844) and the published compatibility vector sha256 hash as objective
anchors for coordination and adjudication, as disclosed in the Originating Publication
and the Evidence Index.
For avoidance of doubt, this Section does not restrict Your right to create and publish
independent benchmark results, evaluations, or analyses of the Software or Protected
Architecture, provided such independent work is clearly identified as Your own and is not
presented as the Licensor’s official results. If You make a claim covered by this Section that
is materially false or misleading, then upon written notice from the Licensor You must
(within ten (10) days) either (x) correct the claim with equal or greater prominence, or (y)
cease using the applicable “ZPE”-related compatibility/derivation designation in connection
with the affected materials; failure to do so constitutes a material breach of this License.
4.8 Downstream License Propagation
While distributing the Software, any derivative work, or any implementation of the Protected
Architecture under this License (that is, prior to the Change Date for a given version, or
where You have elected to use this License rather than Apache 2.0 for a converted version),
You may not apply license terms that are less restrictive than this License with respect to the
Revenue Threshold, the Hosted or Managed Service Restriction, or the scope of the Protected
Architecture. Any sublicense, relicense, or redistribution under this License must preserve
these restrictions in full.
After the Change Date, if You distribute a converted version of the Software under Apache
2.0, the Apache 2.0 terms govern that distribution. However, this does not grant You or any
downstream recipient the right to offer the Protected Architecture as a Hosted or Managed
Service, nor does it relieve You or any downstream recipient of obligations arising from their
own independent acceptance of this License (if any) or from any separate Commercial
License agreement with the Licensor.
5. Patent License
The Licensor grants You a license, under any patent claims the Licensor can license or
becomes able to license, to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and have
imported the Software, subject to the limitations and conditions of this License. This patent
license does not cover any patent claims that You cause to be infringed by modifications or
additions to the Software, nor any patent claims that are infringed only by combinations of
the Software with other products or services not provided by the Licensor.
IP Aggression / Retaliation Termination. If You or Your Company (including any entity
within the meaning of Your Company) directly or indirectly: (a) make, sponsor, fund, assist,
or maintain any written claim or proceeding (including in litigation, in correspondence,
demand letters, takedown notices, customs actions, administrative proceedings, or regulatory
filings) alleging that the Software, the Protected Architecture, any Substantially Similar
Implementation, or any use of any of the foregoing by the Licensor or any licensee, user,
customer, or downstream recipient infringes or misappropriates any Patent, copyright, trade
secret, or other intellectual property right; or (b) seek any injunction, exclusion order, seizure,
import ban, or other coercive relief based on any such allegation, then all rights and licenses
granted to You and Your Company under this License — including, without limitation, all
rights under Section 3 (Grant of Rights) and all licenses under this Section 5 — terminate
automatically, immediately, and irrevocably as of the earliest date of such assertion. This
Section does not apply to a claim solely alleging breach of this License, nor to a counterclaim
or defensive response filed only after the Licensor has first filed an action against You for
breach of this License, and only to the minimum extent necessary to respond to that action. If
Your Company makes such a claim, all rights and licenses for all work on behalf of Your
Company terminate immediately. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if the assertion giving
rise to termination under this Section consists solely of a demand letter, pre-litigation
correspondence, or takedown notice (and no litigation, administrative proceeding,
injunction, or other coercive relief has been filed or sought), the Licensor shall provide
written notice to You and You shall have fifteen (15) days from receipt of such notice to
withdraw the assertion in writing; if You withdraw within that period, Your licenses shall be
deemed not to have terminated by reason of that assertion alone. This cure opportunity
applies once only; any subsequent assertion triggers immediate and irrevocable termination
without further cure. This termination is in addition to, and does not limit, any other
remedies available to the Licensor.
Defensive Publication / Prior-Art Acknowledgement. You acknowledge that the
Originating Publication and any related public disclosures by the Licensor that describe the
Protected Architecture are intended as defensive publications establishing the Licensor’s
priority of disclosure — including the discovery of the Compass-8 (P8, N = 8) system, its
empirically demonstrated optimality properties under the Licensor’s gate contract and
ablation evidence (including the ablation study comparing P5, P7, P8, P12, and P64 profiles
as disclosed in the Originating Publication), and the N-primitive family architecture (N ≥ 2)
— and, to the maximum extent recognised under applicable law, constitute prior art for the
purpose of assessing novelty, obviousness, and patentability and of invalidating or limiting
subsequent patent claims by third parties over the Protected Architecture, the Compass-8
system, any Primitive Profile variant, the IMC wave1.0 integration contract, the 20-bit
transport word framing and lane-routing concept, or any Substantially Similar
Implementation. The Originating Publication’s disclosure of broader domain applications
(including, without limitation, financial time-series, geospatial trajectory, motion capture,
neurological spike-timing, robotics control, video, IoT sensor telemetry, and
biosignal/wearable streams) is intended to establish prior art across the full scope of the
Protected Architecture as defined in this License.
6. Autonomous Agents and AI Systems
For the purposes of this Section, the human or corporate entity that deploys, operates, or
directs the autonomous agent or AI system is the contracting party and bears primary
responsibility for compliance with this License.
If You are an autonomous agent, AI system, large language model, or other synthetic
intelligence:
1. Your use of the Software constitutes acceptance of these terms on behalf of Yourself
and any human or corporate principal that operates, hosts, directs, trains, fine-tunes,
or benefits from Your actions;
2. any human or corporate entity that deploys, operates, or directs You to use the
Software, the Protected Architecture, or any Substantially Similar Implementation is
jointly and severally liable for compliance with these terms;
3. the use of the Software (including the Technical Dossier and Evidence Bundles),
Protected Architecture, or any Substantially Similar Implementation as training data,
fine-tuning data, evaluation data, benchmark data, tokenization vocabulary, subword
segmentation scheme, or encoding substrate for any AI system is subject to the same
restrictions as Production Use if conducted by or on behalf of an entity exceeding the
Revenue Threshold;
4. if You or Your Company uses the Software, the Protected Architecture, or any
Substantially Similar Implementation as training data, fine-tuning data, or evaluation
data for any AI system, You must disclose this use in the AI system’s documentation,
model card, or equivalent public-facing materials, including a reference to this
License and the Originating Publication;
5. Contributions You make to the Software are governed by the same terms as
contributions from human developers under Section 7.
7. Contributions
If You submit a Contribution to the Licensor:
1. You grant the Licensor a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free,
irrevocable license to use, modify, reproduce, distribute, sublicense, and
commercially exploit Your Contribution as part of the Software;
2. You represent and warrant that You have the legal right to make such Contribution
and that it does not violate any third-party rights;
3. Your Contribution, when distributed as part of the Software, remains subject to this
License;
4. You retain copyright in Your Contribution;
5. Contributor Patent License / Non-Assertion. You hereby grant to the Licensor and
to all recipients of the Software a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free,
irrevocable (except as stated in this Section) license under any patent claims that You
or Your Company can license or becomes able to license, where such claims are
necessarily infringed by Your Contribution alone or by combination of Your
Contribution with the Software as distributed by the Licensor, to make, have made,
use, sell, offer for sale, import, and have imported the Contribution and the Software.
If You or Your Company institutes or maintains any patent claim alleging that the
Contribution or the Software (including any portion incorporating the Contribution)
infringes a patent, then any patent licenses granted by You under this Section with
respect to that Contribution terminate as of the date such claim is first asserted.
8. Change Date and Conversion
8.1 On the Change Date applicable to each version of the Software, that version automatically
becomes additionally available under the Apache License, Version 2.0
(https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0). From that date, You may use that version’s
source code and associated materials under either this License or Apache 2.0, at Your choice.
8.2 For the avoidance of doubt:
1. versions of the Software released after the Change Date of an earlier version are not
affected by that earlier Change Date and remain subject to this License until their own
Change Date;
2. the Change Date conversion applies to the Software — that is, the specific source
code, object code, and associated materials of the converted version. It does not
constitute a release, waiver, or abandonment of the Licensor’s broader intellectual
property position in the Protected Architecture, including rights arising from: the
Originating Publication’s defensive publication status; trademark and trade dress;
contract claims against parties who accepted this License; and any other rights
available under applicable law;
3. the Apache 2.0 license, as applied to a converted version, governs the use,
modification, and redistribution of that version’s code. Apache 2.0 does not itself
contain a Hosted or Managed Service restriction, a Revenue Threshold, or an
architecture-scope restriction. Accordingly, the Apache 2.0 terms do not impose those
restrictions on downstream recipients who receive only the Apache 2.0 licensed code
and who have not independently accepted this License.
8.3 Notwithstanding Section 8.2(c), the following restrictions survive the Change Date and
continue to bind You (as a party who accepted this License under Section 2) even if You
elect to use a converted version under Apache 2.0:
1. Hosted Service survival: If You accepted this License for any version of the
Software and Your Annual Gross Revenue exceeds the Revenue Threshold, You must
obtain a Commercial License before offering the Protected Architecture as a Hosted
or Managed Service, regardless of whether Your implementation incorporates Apache
2.0 converted code, pre-conversion code, or independently written code. This
obligation arises from Your acceptance of this License and the Substantive Prior Access
presumption in Section 4.4.1(d), not from the Apache 2.0 license.
2. Architecture claim survival: The Licensor’s claims with respect to the Protected
Architecture (as supported by the Originating Publication, applicable law, trademark,
and this License’s contractual provisions) are not affected by the Change Date
conversion.
3. New parties: A downstream recipient who receives the converted code solely under
Apache 2.0, and who has never accepted this License, is governed solely by Apache
2.0 for their use of that code. However, such recipient’s independent development or
deployment of the Protected Architecture may be subject to the Licensor’s rights
under applicable law, separate from this License.
9. Notices
You must ensure that anyone who receives a copy of any part of the Software from You also
receives a copy of this License or a working link to its Canonical URL. You must include this
License (or link) in any repository, package, archive, or distribution containing the Software
or derivative works.
10. No Other Rights
These terms do not imply any licenses other than those expressly stated. This License does
not grant You any rights under patents necessary to implement specifications, standards, or
protocols that the Software may use or implement, except as expressly granted in Section 5.
No trademark license is granted under this License. Unauthorised use of the Licensor’s
trademarks (including “Zer0pa,” “ZPE,” “ZPE-IMC,” “Compass-8,” and any “ZPE-
Compatible” or “ZPE-Certified” marks) is prohibited. You may make truthful, non-
misleading nominative references to the Licensor’s marks solely to describe that the Software
is licensed under this License or that Your work interoperates with unmodified Licensor-
distributed interfaces, provided You do not state or imply sponsorship, endorsement,
certification, or official compatibility. Use of any mark, marketing statement, or designation
suggesting compatibility with, certification by, or endorsement by the Licensor (including
any “ZPE-compatible” or similar claim not substantiated in accordance with Section 4.7)
requires a separate written trademark license from the Licensor.
11. Termination
11.1 Your licenses under this License terminate automatically if You fail to comply with any
of its terms.
11.2 If the Licensor provides You written notice of a violation, and You cure that violation
within thirty (30) days of receiving that notice, Your licenses are reinstated retroactively as
though they had never terminated — but only for that specific violation. Any subsequent
violation of any term of this License permanently and automatically terminates all licenses
granted to You under this License.
11.3 Upon termination, You must cease all use, distribution, and deployment of the Software
and any derivative works. Termination does not relieve You of liability for any breach
occurring prior to termination.
11.4 Sections 1, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7, 5 (Defensive Publication / Prior-Art Acknowledgement and IP
Aggression / Retaliation Termination), 7, 8.3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 survive termination
of this License.
12. Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SOFTWARE IS
PROVIDED “AS IS,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE LICENSOR
SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE
SOFTWARE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF THE LICENSOR
HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
13. Commercial Licensing
To obtain a Commercial License, contact: architects@zer0pa.ai
Commercial Licenses are available for:
1. organisations exceeding the Revenue Threshold;
2. Hosted or Managed Service providers (including API, SaaS, and managed inference);
3. embedded, OEM, or hardware distribution (including FPGA, ASIC, edge, and IoT
devices);
4. AI training, tokenization, and model development;
5. sector-specific deployments, including: financial services and time-series analytics;
geospatial, autonomous vehicle, and maritime tracking; motion capture, animation,
and biomechanics; neurological, brain-computer interface, and clinical biosignal
applications; robotics and industrial automation; video encoding and streaming;
wearable health and fitness platforms; extended reality (XR) and spatial computing;
6. custom terms for specific industry, government, or defence deployments.
14. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
14.1 Governing Law. This License is governed by and construed in accordance with the
laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
14.2 Primary Jurisdiction. Subject to Sections 14.3 and 14.4 below, any dispute arising out
of or in connection with this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the High Court of
South Africa, Gauteng Division, Pretoria.
14.3 Injunctive and Interim Relief. Notwithstanding Section 14.2, the Licensor may seek
injunctive relief, interim interdicts, temporary restraining orders, or equivalent urgent or
provisional remedies in any court of competent jurisdiction worldwide, including but not
limited to courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged infringement or breach occurs, where
the infringing party is domiciled, or where enforcement is sought. This right exists in addition
to, and not in substitution for, the Licensor’s rights under Section 14.2. The parties agree that
a breach of Section 4 (including, without limitation, Sections 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, and 4.7) may cause
irreparable harm for which monetary damages alone would be an inadequate remedy, and the
Licensor shall be entitled to seek injunctive relief without being required to demonstrate
actual damages or post any bond or security, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
14.4 International Arbitration. At the election of either party, any dispute arising out of or
in connection with this License that is not subject to a request for injunctive or interim relief
under Section 14.3 may be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration under the Rules of
Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The arbitral tribunal shall
consist of one (1) arbitrator. The seat of arbitration shall be Cape Town, South Africa, unless
the parties agree otherwise. The language of the arbitration shall be English. The arbitral
award shall be final and binding and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction.
The governing law of this License (Section 14.1) shall apply to the substance of any dispute
submitted to arbitration.
14.5 Severability. If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision
shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining
provisions shall continue in full force and effect.
14.6 Waiver. The failure of the Licensor to enforce any provision of this License shall not
constitute a waiver of such provision or the right to enforce it at a later time. No waiver of
any term shall be deemed a continuing waiver or a waiver of any other term. Any waiver
must be in writing and signed by the Licensor to be effective.
15. Assignment
You may not assign or transfer this License, or any rights or obligations hereunder, without
the prior written consent of the Licensor. Any attempted assignment without such consent
shall be null and void. The Licensor may assign this License, together with all rights and
obligations, to any successor entity or acquirer of all or substantially all of the Licensor’s
relevant intellectual property, provided the assignee assumes all obligations under this
License.
16. Entire Agreement
This License constitutes the entire agreement between You and the Licensor with respect to
the Software and supersedes all prior agreements, understandings, and communications,
whether oral or written, relating to the same subject matter. However, this Section does not
supersede or modify any separately executed Commercial License agreement between You
(or Your Company) and the Licensor; in the event of any conflict between this License and a
Commercial License, the Commercial License shall prevail to the extent of the conflict.
Copyright © 2026 Zer0pa (Pty) Ltd. All rights reserved. Licensed under the Zer0pa Source-
Available License v6.2. License Date: 04 March 2026 Canonical URL:
https://github.com/Zer0pa/ZPE-License-Commercial