License

Two separate things are described on this page: the license
terms that govern using GeMRTOS, and the license file
that Quartus® Prime needs in order to use the encrypted IP. They are independent —
you need to understand both.

1. License terms

GeMRTOS software

The kernel source, drivers, hardware abstraction layer, public API
headers, example applications and documentation are licensed under the
PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.

It permits use, copying, modification and distribution for any
noncommercial purpose — research, teaching, personal projects, evaluation.
Commercial use, and using the software to provide services to others,
require a separate agreement. The full LICENSE text shipped
with the source is authoritative; this is a summary for orientation.

GeMRTOS hardware IP

The Platform Designer IP core is a separate proprietary work with its own
agreement. It is available at no cost for academic and research purposes;
commercial use requires a separate written agreement with us.

2. The license file (FlexLM)

Why it exists

The GeMRTOS IP core is encrypted. That is a deliberate engineering
decision, and it is about version control rather than access control: it
keeps a single canonical version of the IP under the
project’s stewardship, instead of allowing modified variants to spread
whose behaviour nobody can account for. For a system whose value rests on
predictable timing, an uncontrolled fork is not a feature.

Quartus Prime requires a FlexLM license file to work with encrypted IP. So the
.dat file below is a technical prerequisite created by
the encryption — not a commercial gate. Everyone who uses GeMRTOS
needs one, academic users included.

FlexLM is the same license mechanism Altera uses for licensed versions of
Quartus Prime, so if you already work with licensed Quartus Prime, this is familiar
ground and the infrastructure is already in place.

Which file do I need?

Download

These files work with any NIC — for most users they are
all that is needed:

• 
  gemrtos_fixed_license.dat — fixed license
• 
  gemrtos_float_license.dat — float license, any NIC

NIC-specific license file

If you already run a FlexLM license server holding licenses for other IP
cores, and you want to add GeMRTOS to that same server, you will need a file
tied to that specific machine. We generate those individually.

To request one, contact us
with:

• the MAC address of the machine running your FlexLM license
  server

This is the same information Altera asks for when issuing licensed
versions of Quartus Prime. If you already run a FlexLM server for Quartus Prime, it is
the same machine and the same MAC address — you will already have it on
hand.

We will generate the license file for that host and send it back to you.

3. Third-party components

GeMRTOS includes third-party software under its own respective licenses,
unaffected by the terms above — including the lwIP networking stack and its
integration layer. These are documented in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md
in the source distribution.

Questions

If you are unsure which terms apply to your project, or which license file
you need, ask us rather than
guess — a short description of what you are building is enough for us to tell
you.