Licence, and use of the name
Two licences, no restrictions and no expiry on either. One rule, which is about a name rather than about the work.
The short version
| What | Licence | What you may do |
|---|---|---|
| The specifications, RVW-1 to RVW-7 | CC0 1.0 | Anything at all. No permission, no attribution, no notice to keep, and no way for this to be withdrawn later. |
| Reference code and the example files | MIT | Anything, provided the notice travels with the code. |
| Entries in the register index | CC0 1.0 | Reuse them, including commercially. A citation is appreciated and is not required. |
| The name Revow and the mark | Not licensed | Say that your software implements Revow. Nothing beyond that. |
| The name Bulbea and its mark | By permission | Nothing here grants any right to them. Ask Bulbea. |
The specifications
Every specification on this site is released under CC0 1.0 Universal (opens another site), which puts it as close to the public domain as a licence can. You may implement it, fork it, translate it, rename it, publish it as a standard of your own, or build a product on it and charge for that product.
You do not have to ask, you do not have to credit anyone, and you do not have to keep a notice anywhere. A specification that needed permission to implement would not be a standard.
Patents are a separate question and CC0 answers it only partly: it waives copyright, not patent rights. So it is said here without hedging. No patent has been applied for on anything described in these documents and none will be. Nothing in them is known to this lab to be covered by a patent held by anyone else, and if that ever changes it goes in the changelog the day it is known.
The reason is not generosity. This work is only worth doing if the result ends up everywhere, and nothing ends up everywhere while one party can still decide who gets to use it. A protocol held back for one operator, or licensed for a fee, is a product with a specification attached. That is a reasonable thing to build and it is not this.
Code and example files
The anchor contract of RVW-7, and every file on the files page, are released under the MIT (opens another site) licence. Copy them into your test fixtures, ship them inside a product, modify them, relicense your modifications. Keep the notice with the code and nothing else is owed.
The example documents are signed by throwaway keys that hold nothing, and their content is invented. They exist so that an implementation can be tested against artefacts somebody else produced, which is the only way to find out whether two implementations really agree.
The name and the mark
Neither is covered by either licence, and that is on purpose. The documents have to be free for anyone to implement, and the names have to keep meaning one specific thing, otherwise a reader who is told that something is Revow learns nothing from it. This is the only restriction anywhere on this site, and it costs an implementer nothing: a name is not a part you need in order to build the thing.
You may
Say that your software implements Revow, that it supports RVW-5, or that it is Revow compatible. Use the specification numbers. Link to this site. Describe what you built, in your own words, using the vocabulary of the model.
No permission needed
You may not
Present your service as being Revow. Use the name or the mark as the name of your product, your company or your domain in a way that suggests it comes from this lab. Use the mark as an endorsement of anything. Alter the mark.
Ask if in doubt
The line between the two is whether a reader could come away believing that this lab made, checked or approved your thing. If they could, it is on the wrong side. The contact form reaches a person and the answer is usually immediate.
Bulbea
Bulbea funds this lab, implements the specifications and reports what breaks. Its name and its mark are its own, are not licensed here, and using either needs written permission from Bulbea. That is the one thing on this site which is not open, and it is deliberate: a mark that anyone may use identifies nobody.
Implementing Revow creates no relationship with Bulbea and no right to claim one. Bulbea holds no privileged position in the protocol either: it operates no register, its attestations count for no more than anyone else, and it cannot withdraw a claim it did not make.
What happens to what you send
If you send a correction, an objection or a design through the contact form and it ends up in a specification, it is published under CC0 1.0 like the rest of that document. If it ends up in the code, it is published under MIT. Sending it is agreeing to that, because a specification with a clause nobody can see is worse than no specification.
Credit goes in the changelog if you want it, and is left out if you do not. Neither changes the licence.
Updated 9 November 2026. See also the terms.