ORL-2.2
An early-stage startup contributing back, under ORL 2.2
Funded or bootstrapped, under the threshold, shipping a commercial product. Sending a patch, an issue, or a defect report upstream. This resolves to the Root tier.
Tier
Owed
Nothing. No fee, no report, no filing.
Sections in play
1.7, 2.1, 2.2, 8.2
Who and what
The situation being resolved.
Actor
An early-stage startup
Funded or bootstrapped, under the threshold, shipping a commercial product.
under 2M USD
Situation
Contributing back
Sending a patch, an issue, or a defect report upstream.
Rulings
3 questions resolved against the text.
Which tier applies?
Root. Funded or bootstrapped, under the threshold, shipping a commercial product. Below $20,000,000 in trailing revenue, or within an exempt category, no Canopy royalty applies. Sections 4, 6, 8, and 10 still bind every Licensee.
Sections 1.7, 2.1, 2.2
Is anything owed?
Nothing. No fee, no report, no filing.
Sections 2.1
What must a contribution disclose?
That it is your own work, or is appropriately licensed and identified as such, or was produced with the assistance of an AI tool and which tool. Section 8.2 extends this to issues and defect reports, not only code, because the volume problem maintainers face is reports rather than patches.
Sections 8.2
Cautions
What this situation gets wrong most often.
Revenue is measured across entities under common control, per Section 1.4. A parent company above the threshold makes its subsidiary a Canopy Licensee regardless of that subsidiary's own turnover.
Same actor
Other situations for this party.
Non-normative. Where this and the licence text disagree, the licence text applies.