License.

Numra is published under the Numra Academic & Research License (Non-Commercial) v1.0. The canonical text lives at LICENSE in the repository — that text governs; this page is a plain-English summary.

What you can do for free

Non-commercial academic and research use is permitted at no cost. That covers, concretely:

  • Research papers, theses, dissertations, and conference publications.
  • Teaching and coursework at universities, degree-granting institutions, and non-profit research institutes.
  • Personal projects, hobby work, and self-directed learning.
  • Reproducibility runs and benchmark replication tied to published research.
  • Distribution of forks and binaries to other academic or research organizations for collaboration, teaching, or publication support — subject to the attribution conditions in §5 of the license.

What requires a commercial license

The license defines Commercial Use broadly. The following all require a separate commercial license — including the internal ones:

  • Any use by a for-profit entity, including internal research, prototyping, evaluation, and experimentation. There is no implicit evaluation carve-out.
  • Building, delivering, or operating any product, service, or workflow for which you or a third party is paid.
  • Consulting or services-for-fee work where Numra is used to produce deliverables.
  • Hosted services (including SaaS) that incorporate Numra or a derivative.
  • Paid training, support, or hosting that involves the Software.

For commercial licensing, contact [email protected] with subject prefix [Numra commercial]. See /commercial for the inquiry path.

FAQ

Is Numra OSI-approved open source?

No. Numra is source-available: you can read, audit, fork, and modify the code, but the license restricts use to non-commercial academic and research contexts. OSI-approved licenses (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, …) place no such restriction.

Can I cite Numra in a paper or thesis?

Yes — and citation is encouraged. See /cite for BibTeX, RIS, and the canonical CITATION.cff.

Can my company use Numra to evaluate replacing SciPy or SUNDIALS internally?

No. The license explicitly classifies internal research, prototyping, evaluation, and experimentation by a for-profit entity as Commercial Use (§1, definition of Commercial Use). A short evaluation license can be arranged — email [email protected] with subject prefix [Numra evaluation].

What does §3 academic-to-academic redistribution actually allow?

§3 lets academic and research organizations distribute forks and binaries to other academic and research organizations (and their members) for non-commercial academic and research use. The use case is collaboration, reproducibility, teaching, and publication support — not commercial pipelines that happen to pass through an academic mirror.

Quoting §3: “Academic/Research Organizations may Distribute forks and binaries of the Software to other Academic/Research Organizations and their members for Non-Commercial Academic/Research Use, … subject to Section 5.” §5 requires that you ship the license, keep copyright notices, and mark significant modifications.

What governing law applies?

§10: the laws of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), excluding conflict-of-laws rules.

Will the license ever change?

The license has no automatic conversion clause — it does not flip to a permissive license after a fixed time. Future releases of Numra may be published under different terms, but each released version remains under the license shipped with it.

Can I fork Numra?

Yes, subject to the license terms. You may use, modify, and distribute forks for non-commercial academic and research use; you must keep a copy of the license, retain copyright notices, and mark significant modifications (§5). Commercial forks require a separate license.

What about logos and branding?

§6: the license grants no rights to Numra's trademarks, logos, or branding, except for truthful attribution. Don't ship a fork that looks like an official Numra release.

If your situation isn't covered above, email [email protected] with subject prefix [Numra license question].