Change Temoa license from GPLv2 to MIT #223
Description
We are transitioning Temoa from the strong copyleft GPLv2 license to the permissive MIT license to encourage broader adoption and contributions. Copyleft licenses, including GPLv2, can be restrictive for individuals or organizations that need to integrate the model into proprietary or mixed-license systems, which limits Temoa’s reach.
Among permissive licenses, we selected MIT for its simplicity, broad compatibility with other open-source licenses, and widespread use across the scientific software community. Although the MIT license does not include an explicit patent grant, the likelihood of patent-related issues is considered low given the specialized nature of Temoa as a research-focused modeling framework.
A permissive license means that some third-party enhancements might not be released openly. However, many widely used energy system models already operate under permissive licenses, demonstrating that this approach can effectively support both community collaboration and adoption by developers that require more flexible licensing. Thanks to oemof and pypsa for providing a blueprint on switching a model’s license.
This change aligns with our goal of making Temoa more accessible and impactful.
All past contributors listed below should indicate whether they approve of this change by providing a 👍 or 👎 by December 15, 2025. Feel free to discuss below. If you do not approve, the current developers will work to remove or rewrite your contributions.
List of contributors:
👍 @jdecarolis
👍 @ParticularlyPythonicBS
👍 @jeff-ws
👍 @aranyavenkatesh
👍 @SutubraResearch
👍 @idelder
👍 @binghui89
@iankurgarg
👍 @spkanung
👍 @hadieshraghi
👍 @kathjordan
👍 @mikeblackhurst
👍 @yashsamit
👍 @nspatank
👍 @danielhuppmann
@hunteke
👍 @ardequeiroz