Human Source License (HSL)

A source-available license for the age of AI.

Why

Open source was built on a simple social contract: developers share their work freely, and the community gives back through contributions and goodwill.

AI companies and hyper-scalers have broken this contract. They extract decades of human-written code to build billion-dollar models and managed services — without permission, compensation, or credit.

HSL is a direct response to this extraction.

What

HSL is a concise license that keeps software free for the community while capturing value from those who profit most:

• Free for the 99%: Free for individuals, researchers, and any organization’s internal operations.
• Large-Scale Commercial Use: Companies with >$100M revenue (inflation-adjusted) require a license for external software or services.
• AI Model Protection: Any use for training, running, or supporting AI models for third parties requires a commercial license, regardless of revenue.
• Professional Services Friendly: Using the software as a tool for consulting and custom development remains free.
• Human Hands Only: Contributions from AI agents are rejected. HSL is for human-to-human collaboration.

Who

HSL was developed by Dr. Ralph M. Debusmann in 2026 for Kafi and other projects that believe human creativity deserves protection.

Use it

Copy LICENSE into your repo. Replace [Project Name], [Year], and [Copyright Holder] with your own.

Maybe add your employer company to the exception if it has >$100M yearly revenue, i.e., replace [Company (short name)] and [Company (long name)] with your employer company to make sure they are definitely excluded.

Status

HSL v0.2 is a working draft. It has been structured for international use (with specific protections for European and US jurisdictions) but has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer.

Read in full here: