Why AATEL Was Created: A Pact of Respect for Software

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Why AATEL Was Created: A Pact of Respect for Software

"Software is an act of generosity. Protecting it means protecting our creativity."

The world has changed

When code gets shared online, it is shared with purpose: to help other developers, solve real problems, or spark someone else's creativity. Shared because of a belief in the power of community — in the idea that knowledge grows when it flows freely between people.

But today, that gift is being taken without asking.

Code is harvested by automated pipelines to train commercial AI systems, or repurposed for ends that have nothing to do with peace, progress, or the human spirit that created it in the first place.

MIT. Apache. GPL. None of them were written for this world.

This is not a punishment. It is a safeguard.

What is AATEL

The AATEL (Anti-AI Training Ethical License) was created to restore balance between openness and respect.

The goal is not to lock away code. It is to ensure that whoever uses it, does so with intention and integrity.

It is the first ethical source license. Not open-source. Not proprietary. A third way that did not exist before.

Variant	For	Base
`aatel v2.1`	Software / code	MIT-derived
`aatel-IC v2.1`	Internet content (articles, docs, datasets)	Original

The three pillars

🧠 Respect for ingenuity

AI systems may not train on the work without explicit, informed permission.

Code is a human artifact — the product of thought, time, and creativity. It is not free fuel for algorithms.

☮️ Peace and ethics

The work must never be used to build weapons, military surveillance systems, or any technology designed to harm.

These are not abstract principles. They are enforceable terms.

🤝 Reciprocal sustainability

If a corporation profits from the work, it is only fair they give something back.

Revenue < €1M / Non-profit / Individual  →  Free (notification only)
Revenue ≥ €1M (Level A)                  →  Fixed monthly fee
High revenue (Level B)                    →  Fixed fee + % of turnover

The €1M threshold is fixed. Small projects, indie developers, open communities — always free.

The pay-per-response mechanism (AATEL-IC)

AI search engines and answer engines index content once, then use it to generate responses millions of times — with no traffic ever returning to the source. The old web model is broken.

The Golden Rule:

1 indexing × 1,000,000 responses = payment for 1,000,000 uses — not one access.

Built-in anti-loophole provisions cover missing tracking data, absent robots.txt, and fragmented corporate structures attempting to evade liability.

How to adopt it

Three steps:

# 1. Download the template
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aatel-license/aatel-license.github.io/main/aatel_v2_1_template_IT.txt

# 2. Fill in your details
# {{YEAR}}, {{NAME}}, {{EMAIL}}, {{CITY}}, {{AMOUNT}} ...

# 3. Add to your repo
mv aatel_v2_1_template_IT.txt LICENSE

Then share it. The more developers who adopt AATEL, the harder it becomes for large operators to ignore independent creators.

A final word

Open source was never meant to mean unconditional. It was built on trust — the trust that what we give will be used to build something better, not to erase us from the equation.

AATEL is a small act of reclaiming that trust.