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 has two kinds of material, licensed separately.

The software — the kernel, drivers, hardware abstraction layer, public API headers, example applications and documentation — is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 (LICENSE.md). It permits use, copying, modification and distribution for any noncommercial purpose as that licence defines it. Any other use requires a separate written agreement with GeMRTOS.

The hardware IP — the GeMRTOS Controller, a Platform Designer component — is a separate proprietary work. It is free of charge for academic and research use; commercial use requires a separate written agreement with GeMRTOS. It is delivered encrypted, and Quartus® Prime needs a FlexLM licence file (.dat) to use encrypted IP. That file is a technical requirement of the encryption, not a commercial gate. The downloadable files work with any network adapter; a file tied to one specific licence server is issued on request.

Third-party components, including the lwIP networking stack, keep their own licences, which these terms do not change; they are listed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md. Files in the published IP tree that it does not list are GeMRTOS’s own work, licensed as the component they accompany.

This is a summary for orientation; the licence texts are authoritative. It is not legal advice. For commercial licensing, contact GeMRTOS through gemrtos.com.

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.

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.