License & Open Source

1The MIT License

The MIT License is one of the most permissive and widely used open-source licenses. It allows you to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and even sell copies of the software with minimal restrictions.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 Dilshad Hussain (ShadBalti)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

2What You Can Do

Under the MIT License, you are free to:

3Requirements

The only requirement is that you include the original copyright notice and license text in any copy of the software or substantial portion of it:

4Dictionary Content License

While the OpenBalti source code is under the MIT License, the dictionary content (words, definitions, translations, examples) has different considerations:

• Community Contributions: Dictionary entries contributed by users are subject to the license granted in our Terms of Use. Contributors retain ownership but grant OpenBalti a license to use and distribute the content.
• Educational Use: The dictionary content is freely available for personal, educational, and non-commercial research purposes.
• Commercial Use: If you wish to use the dictionary content for commercial purposes, please contact us to discuss licensing arrangements.
• Attribution: We appreciate attribution when using our dictionary content, though it is not strictly required for non-commercial use.

5Contributing to OpenBalti

We welcome contributions from developers, linguists, native speakers, and anyone passionate about preserving the Balti language.

By contributing code to OpenBalti, you agree that your contributions will be released under the same MIT License. You retain copyright of your work while granting the project permission to use, modify, and distribute your contributions.

6Branding and Trademark

While the code is open source, the OpenBalti name and logo are part of our project identity:

• The "OpenBalti" name and logo should not be used in ways that suggest official endorsement or affiliation without permission
• Forks or derivative projects should use different branding to avoid confusion with the official project
• You may reference OpenBalti when discussing the project origin or providing attribution

7Third-Party Dependencies

OpenBalti uses various open-source libraries and tools. Each dependency has its own license, which must be respected:

For a complete list of dependencies and their licenses, please refer to the package.json file in our GitHub repository.

8Disclaimer

As stated in the MIT License, the software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The authors and contributors are not liable for any damages or issues arising from the use of the software. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with applicable laws and regulations in their jurisdiction.