{"id":"Timescale-License","title":"Timescale License","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timescale/timescaledb/main/tsl/LICENSE-TIMESCALE","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the Timescale License, which governs the part of a time-series database that is not under the Apache License 2.0. The grant is drawn as four narrow licences, internal use, value added products or services, distribution of unmodified standalone copies, and derivative works, and section 2.2 then forbids offering the software as a database-as-a-service or selling it. It is not an open source licence.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, record identifier and IRI local name agree. The triple is left out: the SPDX list does not carry this licence and no identifier is invented. cc:legalcode points at the file the publisher ships and dct:source at the same file's page. dct:publisher is Timescale, Inc., which the text names as a party. dalicc:licenseVersion is left out: the text carries a posted date rather than a version number.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"dcmitype:Software only. The text covers database software and the documentation that goes with it, and the documentation is named only in the government rights clause.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 2.1 grants 'limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, fully paid up, worldwide licenses' in four parts: copying, compiling, installing and using for internal business purposes; using and distributing as part of Your Value Added Products or Services; copying and distributing unmodified standalone copies; and preparing Derivative Works. That gives odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks and dalicc:ModifiedWorks. cc:CommercialUse is permitted, because a Value Added Product or Service is expressly a product a licensee sells. No dalicc:patentGrant: the text grants no patent licence and reserves every right not expressly granted.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:sellCopy and dalicc:sublicense for section 2.2, 'You agree not to ... transfer, sell, rent, lease, sublicense, loan, or otherwise transfer or make available any TSL Licensed Software, whether in source code or binary executable form.' dalicc:ChangeLicense because every permitted copy travels 'subject to the terms and conditions of the most current version of this TSL Agreement' and section 2.4 grants nothing by implication. dalicc:promote is absent: the text has no trademark or endorsement clause, which is unusual for a licence of this kind.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:Notice and cc:ShareAlike hang on odrl:distribute, odrl:modify and odrl:derive for section 2.1(b)(1), 'You notify Your customers that use of such Timescale Software or Derivative Works is subject to this TSL Agreement and You provide to each such customer a copy of the most current version of this TSL Agreement or a URL from which the most current version of this TSL Agreement may be obtained'.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"Sections 5 and 6 are separate, so each goes into the property that names it. Twelve further clauses are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses, including all four parts of the grant, the prohibitions and the definition of a Value Added Product or Service.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:governingLaw","description":"dalicc:governingLaw is 'the law of the State of New York, United States' for section 7.3, and dalicc:governmentRightsLimitation carries section 7.8, the same use of that property as on Watcom-1.0. cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide because the grant says worldwide. dalicc:terminatesOnBreach is true for section 4, which gives no cure period at all.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"odrl:duty","description":"Section 2.1(b)(2) obliges the licensee to bind its own customers: 'the customer is prohibited, either contractually or technically, from defining, redefining, or modifying the database schema or other structural aspects of database objects'. That is a duty to impose a restriction downstream. dalicc:addLimitation is a rule action a licence permits or prohibits, not a duty, so it is not used here. Quoted. Proposed term: dalicc:imposeDownstreamRestriction, a duty action.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:fieldOfUseRestriction","description":"The database-as-a-service bar has no term. dalicc:fieldOfUseRestriction is the nearest literal and section 2.2 is quoted in full. Proposed term: dalicc:competingServiceRestriction, the same term Elastic-2.0 and RSALv2 need.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Section 7.2 lets the licensor change the agreement unilaterally, and the changed agreement then governs every version released after its posted date. No term can say that a licence's terms are settled by the publisher after the fact. Quoted. Proposed term: dalicc:unilateralAmendment, a boolean annotation.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer, run against licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, returned no conflicts. Permitting odrl:distribute while prohibiting dalicc:sellCopy raises nothing, because dalicc:sellCopy is not in the dependency graph, and the text does treat the two as different acts.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"record","description":"Its nearest sibling is Confluent-Community-1.0, the other record in this set that is drafted as a signed agreement rather than as a short set of terms: both carry dalicc:governingLaw, both prohibit sublicensing, both bar a competing service and neither grants a patent licence. This record differs in carrying dalicc:governmentRightsLimitation and dalicc:sellCopy, in having no cure period, and in prohibiting rather than permitting dalicc:ChangeLicense, which the Confluent text expressly allows for a licensee's own modifications.","action":"none"}],"family":"Source-available licences and riders","port_of":null,"variant_kind":null,"variant_of":null,"notes":"The licence covers only part of the project that publishes it; the rest is under the Apache License 2.0, and the text says which files are which. A reader checking a repository has to look at the file, not only at the project."}