Technology Is Mankind's.
TIM is a permissive open-source license with teeth. It gives developers the same freedoms as MIT — use it, modify it, ship it, sell it — but adds three protections that MIT doesn't:
- You can never close it. The software stays open-source forever. No rug-pulls.
- If you sell it as a product, reach out to the author. Big companies that commercialize the software itself must make a documented good-faith attempt to contact the original author and negotiate fair compensation. A message on the repo counts.
- If you try to close it, you lose everything. The original author reclaims all rights, including to your modifications.
Because the current open-source licensing landscape has a gap:
- MIT/BSD — Do anything, no protections. Companies can fork your life's work, close it, and sell it back to you.
- GPL/AGPL — Strong copyleft, but scares away legitimate commercial use and creates compliance headaches.
- BSL/SSPL — Source-available but not truly open-source. Restricts usage in ways that hurt small developers.
TIM sits in the middle: fully permissive for normal use, but with a poison pill for bad actors.
| Use Case | Obligation |
|---|---|
| Using it as a dependency in your app | Attribution only |
| Modifying it for internal use | Attribution only |
| Shipping it as part of a larger product | Attribution only |
| Small company/indie dev (under $1M revenue) | Attribution only |
| Big company selling the software itself as a product | Reach out to the author, negotiate in good faith |
| Anyone trying to close-source it | License terminated, rights revert to original author |
TIM = Technology Is Mankind's — while the license is respected.
If someone violates it, TIM flips to This Is Mine — and the original author takes everything back.
Copy the LICENSE file into your project and replace [year] and [author] with your information.
Copyright (c) 2026 Your Name
Reference it in your project as:
SPDX-License-Identifier: TIM-1.0
This license is a living document. If you're a lawyer, a developer who's been burned by a rug-pull, or just someone who cares about open-source sustainability, open an issue or submit a PR. Let's make this airtight.
v1.0 — Draft. This license has not been reviewed by legal counsel. Use at your own discretion. Community feedback is actively sought.
The TIM License itself is released under CC0 1.0 Universal — it belongs to everyone.