Open Source

License

OASIS is free and open-source software released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)

Copyright © 2025–2026 Max M. Lang and contributors.

The AGPL-3.0 is a strong copyleft license that guarantees users the freedom to use, study, modify, and distribute the software — with one important addition over the standard GPL: if you modify OASIS and offer it as a network service (e.g. a hosted SaaS product), you must make your modified source code available to all users of that service.

The full legal text of the license is available at gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0 and in the LICENSE file in the repository.

What This Means in Practice

Academic & research use

Use OASIS freely in your research — whether self-funded, grant-funded, or institutionally supported. Run studies, collect data, publish results. No special permission needed; just cite the project in your publications.

Modify & extend

Fork the code, add features, fix bugs, adapt it to your workflow. If you distribute your changes or offer them over a network, share the source under the same AGPL-3.0 terms.

Self-host for your organisation

Deploy OASIS on your own servers for internal use — universities, research institutes, NGOs, or companies — without any obligation to publish your modifications, as long as you are not offering the service to third parties.

Network-service requirement

If you modify OASIS and make it available over a network (e.g. as a commercial SaaS offering), you must provide the complete corresponding source code to all users of that service under the AGPL-3.0. This is the key mechanism that prevents commercial free-riding while keeping the ecosystem open.

Why AGPL-3.0?

OASIS was previously released under the OASIS Non-Commercial Research License (ONCRL). We moved to the AGPL-3.0 because it is a well-understood, OSI-approved license that removes friction for academic users — no grant-clause ambiguity, no need to ask permission — while still protecting the project against commercial SaaS exploitation through the network-service copyleft provision.

Citation

Citation is appreciated but not legally required by the AGPL-3.0. If you use OASIS in published work, we would be grateful if you cited the project. BibTeX and DOI details are available in the repository README.

Have questions about what's permitted?

Read the Licensing FAQ

Or reach out at max.lang@stx.ox.ac.uk