Intellectual Property Rights and Licensing

1. Intellectual Property Ownership

• NebiOS and other products under the NebiSoft brand are owned by Sarp M., who holds the trademark for the NebiSoft brand.
• Copyright Notice: A copyright notice must be included in all distributions of the software, but specifying the year is not required.

2. Licensing

• Primary License: The software generally uses the Apache 2.0 license. However, some components may be under different licenses, and these can be identified by reviewing the source code.
• Commercial Use: While the software is free to use for personal and business purposes, any commercial use (such as pre-installation of the software on hardware) requires prior contact with NebiSoft. However, we generally do not permit such commercial use.
  • Business Use: There are no issues using NebiOS in business office environments, as long as it is not used for commercial redistribution or bundled in a product for sale.
  • No Commercial Version: Currently, there is no commercial version of NebiOS.

3. Restrictions on Distribution

• Users are free to use NebiOS products for personal or business purposes for free but cannot distribute the software (even modified versions) for profit.
• Users may use the code written by NebiSoft in open-source projects, provided they give appropriate credit to NebiSoft. However, it cannot be used in closed-source or commercial products without obtaining explicit permission from NebiSoft.
• Users are allowed to modify the software, but must give credit to NebiSoft for any modifications made.

4. Copyright Infringement

• In the case of copyright infringement, NebiSoft will contact the violator directly. If the violation continues after warning, legal actions may be pursued.

5. Brand Protection

• NebiOS and the NebiSoft brand cannot be used for malicious or harmful purposes, including defamation or damage to the brand's reputation. This is to prevent the brand from being used in a manner that undermines its value or misleads others.

6. Ecosystem Integrity & NebiOS-Bound Components

Certain components of NebiOS are considered tightly integrated and ecosystem-bound. These include, but are not limited to:

• NebiDE and its modules (e.g. nebide-we, nebide-pm, NebiDE Control Center, NebiDE Screenshot, etc.)


• NebiOS Application Runtime (napp-runtime)


• hwstatusd


• Other NebiOS-specific tools and services that rely on NebiOS system architecture

These components are designed to function exclusively within NebiOS.

6.1 Restrictions

Without prior written permission from NebiSoft, you are not permitted to:

• port these components to other Linux distributions,
• package them as standalone software for another platform,
• or create “drop-in” alternatives that copy their architecture for use on other systems.

You may study and modify the code locally within NebiOS, as long as you comply with the license terms and do not redistribute these components (or their direct clones) for other platforms.

6.2 Authorization (Whitelist)

NebiSoft may, in rare cases, whitelist specific projects or organizations under special conditions. Outside of such explicit permission, any attempt to port or repurpose these components for other distributions is considered a violation of this policy.

6.3 Why These Restrictions Exist

These limitations exist to preserve the integrity, security, and identity of the NebiOS ecosystem. NebiDE, napp-runtime, and other system components are tightly interconnected and rely on shared assumptions about system behavior, security requirements, and architectural consistency.

Additionally, unauthorized ports on external distributions often lead to fragmented, unverified, and poor-quality implementations. In several cases, third parties have attempted to port NebiOS components to other Linux distributions without any ability for NebiSoft to review or validate the technical correctness of those ports.

Such unofficial ports can:

• break core functionality,
• introduce security regressions,
• damage user experience,
• misrepresent NebiOS quality,
• and create user-facing misunderstandings about what is officially supported.

Because NebiSoft cannot audit or guarantee the quality of these third-party ports, restricting redistribution and reimplementation is necessary to ensure that NebiOS remains a coherent, stable, and high-quality platform.

These rules are not meant to limit open-source collaboration, but to prevent ecosystem fragmentation and protect users from unreliable or misleading unofficial implementations.