Vendor-written licence, and why it exists
A vendor-written licence is one whose name identifies a company rather than a standard text. It exists because that company wanted terms a standard licence does not provide, which makes the addition the part worth reading. As of 2026-09-22.
| From the name alone | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Who wrote it | Usually, when the publisher and the name match |
| What it permits | Nothing |
| Whether it is restrictive | Nothing |
| Whether it has been read by others | Nothing |
Inclusion rule. Inferences a reader might draw from a licence name. A row where the answer is nothing is kept, because that is the finding. Order. The one answerable question first, then the three that are not.
1Bespoke is not the same as restrictive
A company may write its own terms to grant something standard licences do not, to attach an acceptable-use policy, or to say plainly that commercial use is allowed. One release in this register does exactly the last of those.
So the shape of the name predicts the reading cost and not the generosity. Treating bespoke as a warning would misdescribe several entries here.
2A name that matches the publisher is worth more
When the licence author and the weights publisher are the same company, there is one party who wrote the document and one place to ask about it. When a project applies somebody else's community licence to its own release, nobody in particular owns the answer.
This register records the tag verbatim and links the page it was read from, because the starting point for that question is the page rather than a search.
3Where this lands in the register
Six families publish their licence as a tag on a model card rather than as a file in a repository, and most of the bespoke names appear there. A card tag can be edited in place, which is one reason every row here carries the date it was read.
The register quotes the name and links the page. Nothing in the licence column is paraphrased, because a paraphrase is what a reader would rely on and what would be wrong in one particular case.
A reading note, not an entry: no vendor value appears on this page. Where the register records this term for a particular release, it is on the licence column and on that family's own page. Nearby terms: Acceptable-use policy, Redistribution.