Let your project help beyond the code.
Purpose Source gives maintainers and contributors a way to connect use of their software with support for causes they care about.
Your project stays in your hands.
Adoption is one canonical LICENSE file. Once your rights review is complete, no separate account or agreement is required to adopt.
You keep repository administration, decide what to merge and choose what to release. Contributors keep their copyright. The Association handles company coverage and payments.
Adoption, step by step
- Review it with your community. Read the licence and check existing licences, contributor permissions and dependencies. You need sufficient rights in the work.
- Choose a release boundary. Use the published licence's unchanged text for eligible new releases. Earlier releases keep their existing terms.
- Claim your repository if you want to. This is optional and separate from adoption. A registered repository is listed, with its own page and badge, whether or not anyone claims it; a claim adds the administrators' powers, such as waivers, under its own terms. None of this is live yet.
Project administrators who claim their repository can choose among the seven categories for its attributed funds, or leave them to the Association, and grant public, free waivers.
You can start the conversation.
You do not need to own a repository to introduce the idea. Share the licence with its maintainers and ask whether it suits the project's users.
If the project joins, your contribution can be recognised in its public-benefit record. You keep your copyright and keep contributing in the same repository.
Recognition and choosing causes
Public contributor profiles are opt-in. Preferences about causes are advisory and start in a trial period before influencing transfers. Recognition is not a payment, a token or a claim on the funds.
The model asks for permission to use contributions under the project licence, not ownership. The platform adds records and preferences around the work.
Choose it for the right reasons.
Purpose Fees support listed charities. This model fits teams that want the use of their software to fund public benefit.
Your team should be able to license the relevant work and be comfortable asking larger users to obtain coverage. Each software release has a four-year path to Apache-2.0.
A library or package can carry the licence; package format alone does not rule it out. Check the policies of the employers and distribution channels you rely on. Purpose Source is source-available rather than OSI-approved open source.
Start with a conversation.
Purpose Source License 1.0 was published on 2026-10-01. Start by reviewing and discussing it with your project. The platform is the place for repository claims, contributor accounts and organisation records.