Marginal Improvement Reciprocity License, Version 1.0 ("MIRL-1.0") Copyright (c) 2026 R. Michael Glover This is a source-available license, not an Open Source Initiative-approved open-source license. Its purpose is to permit learning, sharing, and genuine improvement while preventing extraction of capital from the Work. 1. Definitions "Work" means the software, documentation, writing, art, data, and other material distributed with this license, except material identified as being under another license or owned by someone else. "Source" means the preferred form for studying and making changes, including the scripts, build instructions, and corresponding assets reasonably needed to reproduce a distributed or publicly performed version. "Modification" means any adaptation, derivative work, or other change to the Work. "Significant Marginal Improvement" means a good-faith, non-trivial Modification that produces a demonstrable improvement over the version used. It must materially improve at least one relevant quality—such as capability, correctness, accessibility, safety, privacy, resource efficiency, maintainability, documentation, pedagogy, or artistic expression—and must not obtain that improvement chiefly by degrading another relevant quality. Merely renaming, rebranding, repackaging, changing prices, adding advertising, removing attribution, or making cosmetic changes is not sufficient. "Independent Worker" means one natural person acting as a sole proprietor or otherwise selling that person's own labor, without employees, investors, shareholders, partners who share profits, or a business entity other than a single-member disregarded entity wholly owned and controlled by that person. Independent consultants, freelancers, and educators may qualify. A worker does not cease to qualify solely because a client reports payments on a U.S. Form 1099 or a comparable form. "Commercial Use" means use primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation, whether direct or indirect. "Capital Return" means revenue or economic benefit based primarily on ownership rather than the natural person's own labor. It includes dividends, profit distributions to investors or passive owners, interest derived from the Work, royalties for access to the Work or a Modification, equity value or fundraising value attributed to them, sale of a business or other capital asset whose value materially includes them, and rent-seeking or financialized claims against them. Ordinary fees paid directly for an Independent Worker's personal consulting, freelance, or educational labor are not Capital Return. "Trust of Trusts" means the stewardship body originally founded and led by R. Michael Glover to oversee commercial uses of the Work. Until a separate legal trust or other stewardship entity is publicly designated by R. Michael Glover in this repository, "Trust of Trusts" means R. Michael Glover acting as the initial steward. A successor has authority under this license only after a public, dated designation is added to the repository by the then-authorized steward. Its reviewing board is the Board of Trustees of Trustees described in the stewardship charter distributed with the Work. Board service is limited to engineers who voluntarily accept a written zero-compensation service agreement; no person or employer is appointed or bound merely by being named or eligible. "Stewardship Approval" means specific, prior, express written permission from the Trust of Trusts for the particular person, version, improvement, scope, clients or audience, compensation model, and time period proposed. Silence, source availability, acceptance of a contribution, or approval of a different use is not Stewardship Approval. 2. Noncommercial permission Subject to this license, the Licensor grants everyone a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-sublicensable copyright license to use, study, copy, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute the Work and Modifications for purposes that are not Commercial Use. 3. Limited commercial permission for independent labor Commercial Use is permitted only when all of the following are true: a. The Trust of Trusts has reviewed the proposed use and granted Stewardship Approval before any offer, sale, invoice, paid instruction, paid advice, monetized deployment, or other money-making activity begins; b. Every person receiving monetary compensation from the use is an Independent Worker, and the compensation is for that person's own labor; c. Before requesting Stewardship Approval and before offering or providing the commercial product or service, that Independent Worker creates a Significant Marginal Improvement; d. The complete Source of the Significant Marginal Improvement is made publicly available, without charge, in a durable and readily accessible repository under this same license no later than the first commercial use; e. The public Source includes a clear description and reasonable evidence of the claimed improvement, instructions sufficient to reproduce or evaluate it, attribution to this Work, and a copy of this license; and f. No person or entity receives, seeks, promises, collateralizes, or accumulates a Capital Return from the Work or any Modification. The Trust of Trusts may approve or decline a request in its stewardship judgment and may condition approval on reporting and verification consistent with this license. Creating or publishing an improvement does not create a right to earn money. Stewardship Approval is always required and does not waive any other condition. For clarity, a company, partnership, nonprofit organization, government body, investment fund, employer, platform acting as principal, or other organization may not exercise the commercial permission in this section. It may hire an Independent Worker for that worker's personal labor only if the organization itself does not copy, deploy, distribute, publicly perform, or otherwise use the Work or a Modification for Commercial Use. No artificial division of an organization or transaction may be used to evade this section. 4. Sharing and public performance Any distribution of a Modification, and any public performance of a modified version over a computer network, must include or conspicuously link to its complete Source and license the Modification as a whole under this same license. You must preserve copyright, attribution, license, and third-party notices. You must state that you changed the Work and identify the date of the change. You may not impose terms or technological measures that restrict a recipient's exercise of the permissions this license grants. Distribution of an unmodified copy is permitted under section 2, but charging for the copy or access to it is Commercial Use and requires full compliance with section 3, including a separate Significant Marginal Improvement. 5. No trademark or endorsement rights This license grants no rights in names, trademarks, service marks, or trade dress, and does not permit you to imply endorsement by the Licensor. 6. Patents The Licensor grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive patent license under patent claims the Licensor can license that are necessarily infringed by your permitted use of the Work. If you or an organization you control initiate patent litigation alleging that the Work or a Modification infringes a patent, all patent rights granted to you by this section terminate. 7. Compliance and termination Your rights terminate automatically if you fail to comply. They reinstate automatically if you cure the violation within 30 days after first learning of it, provided this is your first violation. Otherwise, reinstatement requires the Licensor's express written permission. Sections 5, 8, and 9 survive termination. 8. Disclaimer of warranty TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. YOU BEAR ALL RISK ARISING FROM USE OF THE WORK. 9. Limitation of liability TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE LICENSOR AND CONTRIBUTORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM OR FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE WORK OR THIS LICENSE, REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. 10. Scope and prior versions This license applies only to material for which R. Michael Glover owns the copyright and that is distributed in a version carrying this license. It does not replace or restrict any separate license governing a third-party work, dependency, dataset, recording, quotation, or other incorporated material. Versions previously distributed under the MIT License remain available under the MIT License; this license does not revoke rights already granted for those versions. No contributor's material is relicensed unless its copyright owner has authorized the change. 11. Additional permission and stewardship decisions The Licensor may grant additional permission in writing. Only the Trust of Trusts may grant Stewardship Approval. Additional permission or Stewardship Approval for one person, use, or version does not change this license for anyone else. The Trust of Trusts may publish nonbinding procedures and review criteria, but may not use them to eliminate the express conditions in section 3 without issuing a new license version from the copyright owner. The stewardship charter is explanatory governance unless incorporated into a signed legal instrument. If it conflicts with this license, this license controls the permissions to use the Work. 12. Interpretation If a provision is unenforceable, it will be reformed only as much as necessary to make it enforceable, and the remainder stays effective. Headings and the plain-language summary distributed with the Work are explanatory only; these terms control. This license creates conditions on the copyright and patent permissions granted here and does not waive limitations or exceptions supplied by applicable law. This license governs use of the protected Work; it does not claim ownership of general knowledge, abstract ideas, facts, skills, or expertise that copyright and patent law leave free for others to use.