46bf2b3f43
Establishes the licensing architecture for the Nimmerworld project. The
boundary EXISTS architecturally as soon as this marker lands; subsequent
content extraction (cosmology migration, reference-stubbing in open papers)
becomes editorial cleanup without licensing-ambiguity growth.
FILES ADDED
LICENSE — Apache License 2.0 standard text; copyright held by
Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin), per Swiss copyright-law
attribution requirement that the human author's name appear.
NOTICE — Project name + copyright + AI-collaboration attribution.
Identifies Claude (Anthropic) as collaborator; the partnership
identity within this project is "chrysalis" with git-attribution
to chrysalis <chrysalis@eachpath.local>. Names the open/closed
scope and trademark holdings.
LICENSING.md — Discursive explanation of the open/closed split. The license-
architecture mirrors the work's own substrate/content distinction
at the world-layer: engine-mechanics + general body-canon are
open under Apache 2.0; specific creative-art content (the
Imperial Cult cosmology; named narrative; dialog; voiced content;
the iconographic invention layered on top of the substrate) is
proprietary nimmerverse-studio. Pattern-precedent cited: D&D 5e
Open Game License + id Software's Doom release + Magic the
Gathering's mechanics-vs-cards distinction.
FILES MODIFIED
imperial-cult/cosmology.md — per-file proprietary header added at the top
marking this file as pending-migration to the closed studio-art
repository. The header serves as an explicit license-override
on this file specifically; it states All Rights Reserved under
Nimmerverse Studio while the rest of the repo is Apache 2.0.
WHAT THIS MEANS GOING FORWARD
The architecture-substrate (vocations.md, consent-discipline.md, gender-parity.md,
trait-palette.md, style-index.md, the architecture.md mechanics-papers across
domains, bodies.md, political-register/architecture.md and economics.md, etc.)
is now licensed under Apache 2.0 and inherits this license for all future work.
The Imperial Cult cosmology is marked-but-not-yet-migrated; cosmology.md stays
in this repo physically until the closed studio-art repository is established,
but its content is governed by the per-file proprietary header.
Trademarks ("Nimmerworld", "Nimmerverse", "Nimmerverse Studio") are protected
separately from the code-license per Apache 2.0 §6.
NEXT STEPS (FOR DAFIT)
1. Establish nimmerverse-studio as a legal entity (Switzerland)
2. Register the trademarks
3. Create the closed studio-art repository (e.g., nimmerverse-studio-art at
studio.nimmerverse.com or equivalent)
4. Migration session: move cosmology.md + extract specific Imperial-Cult
references from open papers + replace with structural stubs
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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61 lines
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# Nimmerworld — Licensing
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> *The license-architecture mirrors the work's own register-architecture: what is substrate is open; what is specific creative-art is the studio's. The license is part of the cosmology, not a contradiction of it.*
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## License at a glance
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| Layer | License | Holder |
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| Architecture papers (engine-mechanics + general body-canon) | **Apache License 2.0** | Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin) |
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| Source code (when present) | **Apache License 2.0** | Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin) |
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| **The Imperial Cult cosmology** (the Imperial Wheel; Bhavachakra-rework; orthodox/heretical iconography; named doctrinal content) | **All Rights Reserved — Nimmerverse Studio** | *(pending migration to studio-art repo; currently marked with per-file header)* |
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| Visual assets, sound, imagery, music, voiced content | **All Rights Reserved — Nimmerverse Studio** | *(in studio-art repo when established)* |
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| Specific dialog, narrative, named-character-stories | **All Rights Reserved — Nimmerverse Studio** | *(in studio-art repo when established)* |
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| Trademarks ("Nimmerworld", "Nimmerverse", "Nimmerverse Studio") | **Trademark — Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin)** | regardless of code-license |
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## Why the split
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The architecture is built on a **substrate / content distinction**. The engine-mechanics — ternary-gates, the catalogue-stack, the vocation-system, the consent-discipline, the trait-palette substrate, the lemniscate-runtime, the depletion-pool dynamics — are general patterns that should propagate. *They are the project's intellectual contribution to the medium.* The Imperial Cult cosmology and specific narrative content are the studio's creative-art-inventions; those are the studio's to ship.
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The license-cut maps onto the architecture's own substrate / content distinction at the world-layer. The cosmology specifies *gameworld vs truth-register*: gameworld is the imperium's territory (loose, instrumented, redistributable); truth-register is each agent's own (gated, sovereign, what the agent has built). **Apache 2.0 code = gameworld-equivalent; closed nimmerverse-studio art = truth-register-equivalent.** *The license enacts the same boundary the cosmology describes.*
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## Pattern-precedent
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This is the same shape as several established cultural-IP-distinctions:
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- **D&D 5e Open Game License**: the SRD (System Reference Document — mechanics) is open; specific settings (Forgotten Realms, Eberron) and named-stories are closed.
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- **id Software's Doom release**: the engine source was released under GPL; the WAD-files (assets, maps, textures) remained proprietary. Anyone could fork the engine; nobody could ship "Doom" without re-creating the WAD-files.
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- **Magic the Gathering**: mechanics openly discussed; specific cards, flavor-text, and named-characters proprietary.
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The pattern works because *the IP-moat is in the assets, not the engine*. Engine-mechanics propagating helps the medium evolve; specific creative-art-content remains the creators' to commercialize.
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## Pending migration
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`imperial-cult/cosmology.md` and specific Imperial-Cult-content threaded through other papers will migrate to the closed studio-art repository when established. Currently:
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- `imperial-cult/cosmology.md` carries an explicit per-file proprietary header that overrides the repository's Apache 2.0 license for this specific file.
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- References to specific Imperial-Cult iconography (the Imperial Wheel; the Bhavachakra-rework; the orthodox/heretical split; the deferred-moksha doctrine; the specific aesthetic vocabulary of Boullée + Jantar Mantar + Gita) currently appear in several open papers (`architecture-index.md`, `bodies.md`, parts of `political-register/architecture.md`). At migration time, these references will be replaced with structural stubs (e.g., *"the Imperial Cult cosmology — see studio docs for canonical iconography"*).
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The boundary EXISTS architecturally as soon as this licensing-marker is in place; the content extraction is editorial cleanup that will happen at leisure without licensing-ambiguity growing.
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## AI-collaboration
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Substantial portions of this project's design and source were authored in collaboration with **Claude** (an AI assistant from Anthropic, https://www.anthropic.com/). The partnership-collaboration identity within this project is **chrysalis**; specific contributions are git-attributed to `chrysalis <chrysalis@eachpath.local>`. The human architect is **David Martin**.
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This collaboration-pattern is documented in `NOTICE`. The project's authoring method is *transparent dialog with chrysalis* — open papers honor how the work was actually built.
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## Trademarks
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"Nimmerworld", "Nimmerverse", and "Nimmerverse Studio" are trademarks of Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin). The Apache 2.0 license does not grant permission to use these trademarks. **Anyone may fork the architecture papers under Apache 2.0; nobody may ship a fork called "Nimmerworld."**
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## Studio
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Nimmerverse Studio is held by David Martin (Switzerland). Swiss copyright law requires the human author's name to appear in attribution, hence the dual-form copyright `Nimmerverse Studio (David Martin)`.
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- Project URL: https://nimmerverse.com/
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- Studio URL: https://studio.nimmerverse.com/ *(when published)*
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## Contributing
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Contributions to the open architecture-substrate are welcome under the Apache 2.0 terms. By submitting a contribution, you agree to license it under the project's Apache 2.0 license. Contributions involving the Imperial Cult cosmology or other proprietary world-IP cannot be accepted into the open repository — that content lives in the closed studio-art repository under proprietary terms.
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