A comprehensive source-visible license template for solo developers and indie teams who want to show their code without giving it away.
460+ active sub-clauses. 31 defined terms. 9 sections.
- 📖 What is PSVL?
- 👥 Who is PSVL For?
- 🚫 Who is PSVL NOT For?
- 📋 What Does PSVL Cover?
- ⚖️ Quick Comparison
- 🚀 How to Use
- ❓ FAQ
- 🌍 Origin Story
⚠️ Important Disclaimer- 🤝 Contributing
- 🔒 Security
- 📄 License for This Repository
PSVL is a proprietary source-visible license designed for developers who want to:
- Make their source code publicly visible for transparency, security auditing, and community contributions
- Retain full ownership and control over their intellectual property
- Prevent cloning, unauthorized commercial use, and AI training
- Allow contributions only via Pull Requests that transfer IP to the author
PSVL is NOT an open-source license. It is the opposite — maximum legal protection with maximum code visibility.
| Audience | Why PSVL |
|---|---|
| Solo developers | Protect your work from unauthorized cloning |
| Indie hackers | Show your code without losing control |
| Startups (pre-funding) | Let investors review code under legal protection |
| Security-conscious projects | Enable auditing without giving away IP |
| Social / messaging apps | Privacy, message-content, and anti-exploitation clauses |
| Fintech / payment apps | Financial data, fraud, and anti-money-laundering protections |
| Marketplace / e-commerce | Payment-fraud, purchase-interception, and data-resale protections |
| Games / interactive apps | Anti-clone and competing-product protections |
| Any app with sensitive user data | Comprehensive privacy and data-protection clauses |
| Audience | Reason |
|---|---|
| Open-source community projects | PSVL prohibits redistribution and forking-for-deployment |
| Public libraries / SDKs / frameworks | PSVL prohibits use as a dependency in third-party projects |
| Projects that must be OSI-approved | PSVL is not OSI-approved and never will be |
| High-risk / life-critical software | PSVL explicitly disclaims fitness for such use |
- Personal non-commercial evaluation
- Educational and academic research
- Security vulnerability research (in local Sandbox environments)
- Performance benchmarking and optimization
- Localization and accessibility testing
- Community contributions via Pull Requests
- UI/UX improvement proposals
- Integration and compatibility testing
- Portfolio display of your own contributions (resumes, CVs, LinkedIn)
- Non-profit and humanitarian evaluation
- Commercial use, resale, hosting, or monetization
- Redistribution or sublicensing
- AI / ML training on the code or user data
- Reverse engineering or decompilation (with EU mandatory-law carve-out)
- Operational government, military, or intelligence use
- Data scraping, harvesting, or resale
- Building competing products
- Side-channel, hardware, network, and supply-chain attacks
- Deepfake, bot, and fraud operations
- See Section 4 of PSVL.txt for the full list of prohibitions
- Contributor IP assignment with 18+ age requirement and moral-rights fallback
- Governing law and jurisdiction
- Binding arbitration with class-action waiver (EU/UK consumer carve-outs)
- Severability — one invalid clause cannot void the rest
- Indemnification proportional to fault
- Confidentiality with 5-year survival
- Data-breach notification within 48 hours
- Statute of limitations: 5 years
- Enterprise cyber-liability insurance requirement (tiered)
- Force majeure protection
- Disclaimer of warranties including high-risk-use disclaimer
- Limitation of liability with carve-outs for fraud, gross negligence, etc.
This table summarizes the differences between PSVL and several common licenses. Counts are approximate and exact terms differ; consult each license's full text for authoritative details.
| MIT | Apache 2.0 | GPL v3 | BUSL 1.1 | Elastic 2.0 | PSVL 1.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Permissive | Permissive | Copyleft | Source-available | Source-available | Source-visible |
| Commercial use | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ⏳ Time-delayed | ❌ | ❌ |
| Modification | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Redistribution | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | |
| Explicit AI-training stance | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Contributor IP transfer | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| Arbitration clause | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Governing-law clause | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Severability | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| Indemnification of Author | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Confidentiality | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Data-breach notification | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ 48-hour |
| Side-channel attack bans | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Approximate length | ~165 words | ~9 sections | ~17 sections | ~5 sections | ~7 sections | 9 sections, 460+ clauses |
Download PSVL.txt from this repository. This is the full license text with placeholders ready to fill in.
| Placeholder | Replace With |
|---|---|
[AUTHOR_LEGAL_NAME] |
Your full legal name |
[AUTHOR_LEGAL_NAME_TRANSLITERATED] |
A plain A–Z spelling of your name with accents removed (e.g. Elxan Huseynov). If your name has no special characters, simply use the same value as [AUTHOR_LEGAL_NAME]. |
[YEAR] |
Current year (e.g. 2026) |
[MONTH_YYYY] |
Publication month and year (e.g. May 2026) |
[MONTH_DD_YYYY] |
Specific effective date (e.g. May 14, 2026) |
[GOVERNING_COUNTRY] |
Country whose law governs the license |
[GOVERNING_CITY] |
City where arbitration takes place |
PSVL is intentionally broad. Clauses that reference features your app does not provide (such as biometrics, in-app purchases, or push notifications) are simply inoperative — you do not need to remove them.
You may also:
- Add industry-specific clauses for your domain
- Adjust the enterprise insurance minimum
- Tweak the governing law, dispute resolution, or age requirements
Save the completed file as LICENSE (no extension) in the root of your
project repository. This is the standard location that GitHub, GitLab,
and most tooling recognize automatically.
Add the following to your project's README.md:
Licensed under the Proprietary Source-Visible License 1.0 (PSVL 1.0),
based on the PSVL template by Elxan Hüseynov.
See LICENSE for full terms.
Add the following footer at the bottom of your project's LICENSE file:
================================================================================
Based on PSVL by Elxan Hüseynov — https://github.com/BMBOMICH/psvl
================================================================================
Before deploying PSVL on a real product, consult a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction. PSVL is a strong template, but it is not legal advice. See DISCLAIMER.md.
Q: Is PSVL open source? No. PSVL is explicitly not an open-source license. It is the opposite end of the spectrum: maximum visibility, maximum protection.
Q: Why not just use MIT or Apache 2.0? MIT and Apache 2.0 allow anyone to copy your code, sell it, host it, or build competing products with no obligation back to you. PSVL is designed for developers who do not want that.
Q: Can someone fork my PSVL-licensed repository? Only to submit improvements back via Pull Request. Forks may not be used commercially, redistributed, or published.
Q: What happens to contributions? Contributor IP is assigned to the project Author when a Pull Request is submitted (see Section 5 of PSVL.txt). In jurisdictions where full assignment is not possible (such as the EU), the Author receives an exclusive license instead.
Q: Does PSVL allow AI training on my code? No. PSVL explicitly states that the Author does not consent to AI training on the code, and reserves all rights against such use.
Q: Can government agencies use software licensed with PSVL? Not for operational use without a separate agreement. PSVL includes carve-outs for academic research by public universities, evaluation by public libraries, lawful proceedings, and humanitarian use.
Q: What if a clause is invalid in my country? The severability clause (Section 6.2) keeps the rest of the license in force. The license also includes specific carve-outs for EU, UK, and several other jurisdictions to maximize global enforceability.
Q: Can I use PSVL for a commercial product? Yes — PSVL is designed for proprietary commercial software. The license itself blocks others from using your software commercially without your agreement.
Q: Where do I report a problem with PSVL? Open a GitHub Issue for legal gaps, clause conflicts, or clause proposals. For security or loophole issues, use Report a vulnerability. See SECURITY.md.
PSVL was created on May 14, 2026 by Elxan Hüseynov in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The motivation was simple: existing licenses did not cover the specific combination of needs — letting people see and audit the source code, accept community contributions, and block clones, AI training, and exploitation, while keeping full ownership of the work.
Nothing quite like that existed, so the template was built and then released publicly so other developers facing the same need do not have to start from scratch.
PSVL was drafted with the assistance of Claude by Anthropic, an AI writing assistant, combining knowledge of existing source-available licenses (BUSL, SSPL, Elastic 2.0), cybersecurity threat modeling, and international legal best practices.
This is NOT legal advice. The author is not a lawyer. This license has not been reviewed by legal counsel. Before relying on PSVL for critical legal protection, consult a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction. See DISCLAIMER.md for full details.
Found a legal gap? Have a clause idea? Spotted a typo?
Contributions are welcome:
- Open an Issue for legal gaps, clause conflicts, or proposals
- Open a Pull Request for direct text changes
- Start a Discussion for open-ended ideas
For more, see:
- CONTRIBUTING.md — full contribution guidelines
- CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md — community standards
- SUPPORT.md — where to go for help
- GOVERNANCE.md — how the project is run
- AUTHORS.md — author, contributors, and inspirations
- CITATION.cff — how to cite PSVL in academic work
To report a security or legal-loophole concern privately, see SECURITY.md. Do not open a public issue for security concerns.
The PSVL template itself is governed by the PSVL Template License.
In short:
- ✅ You may copy, use, and adapt the template for your own projects
- ✅ You may fork or mirror this repository
- ✅ You may quote or excerpt the template for review, teaching, or commentary
⚠️ You must credit the original author when adopting the template- ❌ You may not republish the template under your own name without credit
- ❌ You may not use the template text to train AI models
See LICENSE for the full text.
Built with ❤️ in Baku, Azerbaijan — Drafted with Claude by Anthropic
If PSVL protected your project, a ⭐ would help other indie developers find it.