License

Niell ships under a dual license — one for the code that runs, another for the documentation that describes the language. Each part has its purpose and is chosen for different reasons.

Compiler — Apache License 2.0

The niell compiler (Rust code + C runtime + binaries distributed from this site) is licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0.

Practical summary (this is not legal advice):

Allowed: commercial use, modification, distribution, private use, sublicensing, patent rights.
Required: include copyright notice + license text in redistributions, state significant changes from the original.
No warranty: the software is delivered "as is", without warranty of any kind.

Canonical full text: <https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>

Spec — Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0)

The language documentation (this site, the spec chapters, AGENTS.md for LLMs, briefings, design decisions) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0).

Practical summary:

Allowed: share, adapt, translate, and build derivatives for any purpose (including commercial).
Required: give appropriate credit to Daniel Delgado, indicate if changes were made, include a link to the license.
No additional technological restrictions: you can't apply legal terms or technological measures that limit what the license allows.

Canonical full text: <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.en>

Why a dual license

The choice isn't arbitrary:

Apache 2.0 for code is the de facto standard in modern developer tools (Rust, Kubernetes, TensorFlow, Swift). It's business-friendly — companies can adopt the compiler without legal friction, and the patent clause protects against patent trolls.
CC-BY-4.0 for docs is the standard for educational content and language spec documentation. It lets others translate, adapt, or cite freely as long as they credit the original author.

The two together communicate something simple: the compiler is free to use, the spec is free to cite.

Contributions

Any contribution to the compiler (once a public repo exists) is assumed to be under Apache 2.0 — Section 5 of the license. Any contribution to the spec is assumed to be under CC-BY-4.0.

Contact

Daniel Delgado — author and maintainer.

Email: <[email protected]>
Issue tracker / public repo: pending. Once it exists, the canonical URL will live referenced from here and from the project README.

For bug reports, licensing questions, collaboration proposals, or anything that doesn't fit in a public issue, write directly to [email protected].