Copyright and copyleft: who owns Exponential and what the GPL lets you do #

Exponential has one copyright notice. Wherever a person sees it (the footer of a page, the sign-in page, the about page, the help, the console) it reads, word for word:

Exponential Copyright © 1998-2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x

In the source files, in the metadata of extensions and in the license files, the same notice is written in the form programmers have always used for file headers:

Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.

The software is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or (at your option) any later version (GPL-2.0-or-later). The copyright says who owns the work; the license says what everybody else may do with it. This page explains both, in plain words, and the rules every file, extension and page of the project follows.

This page is a summary, not legal advice. The license text in the file LICENSE and the notices in COPYRIGHT.md are what count.

Contents #

1. The notice in one minute
2. A historical shift: 29 October 2026
3. Why the Exponential Foundation is named first
4. The two forms and where each is used
5. What "copyleft" means
6. What the GPL means for you
7. The support window and why the notice matters for it
8. Contributors and the CLA
9. Notices that stay: eZ Systems AS and third-party software
10. Writing the notice in new files
11. Writing the notice in an extension
12. Showing the notice in a design or theme
13. Translations: the notice is never translated
14. How the project checks the notice
15. The documentation's own license
16. Questions people ask
17. Where to read more

The notice in one minute #

A historical shift: 29 October 2026 #

On 29 October 2026 the copyright of Exponential moved from 7x alone to the Exponential Foundation and 7x together, and the project replaced every notice it had with one. It is a milestone in the history of the software, and it is recorded here, in COPYRIGHT.md and in the 6.0.15 changelog.

How the notice read before #

Over the years the notice of the project's own work had grown into several spellings, each from a different time and a different file:

Before the 2026-10-02 change "Every copyright notice names 1998 - 2026 7x & Exponential Foundation first", many files named only eZ Systems AS. That change put the project's own line above the line of eZ Systems in some 3,000 files. The change of 2026-10-29 finishes the work: one holder statement, one order, two forms, everywhere.

What changed on 29 October 2026 #

• Every footer and page a user sees shows the visible notice (see the list).
• About 3,600 file headers use the header form: the line was rewritten by a script, and nothing else in the files changed.
• LICENSE and COPYRIGHT.md name the new holders. The text of the GNU General Public License was not touched: only the holder lines above it changed.
• The metadata of the extensions shipped in the kernel (ezinfo.php, extension.xml) and the generator of new extensions (./console exp:ini:move) write the header form.
• composer.json lists both holders as authors.
• Every third-party notice and the notice of eZ Systems AS stayed exactly as it was.
• A test (CopyrightNoticeTest) and a check script fail if a file names 7x or the Foundation in any other form.

The extensions that live in repositories of their own (the se7enxweb extensions and their -ezpackage twins, Exponential Velocity, the installers and site packages) follow in their next releases, each with its version raised in ezinfo.php and extension.xml.

Why the Exponential Foundation is named first #

The order of the names is deliberate. The Exponential Foundation is named first because it is the steward of the project: the nonprofit that operates Exponential for its users and community, and that is meant to carry the software's rights, its license and its history through the whole life of a release line, independent of the fate of any one company. 7x is named second and remains a full holder: the company that leads the development, maintains the code, reviews and merges the contributions and supports the customers.

Naming the Foundation first says, in the place every user and every lawyer looks first, that Exponential is not the product of a single vendor. That is the lesson of the software's own history: when the original developer stopped the free product, users who had relied on it for years had to find a new steward. A notice that puts a nonprofit first, with the company that does the work next to it, is the project's answer to that history.

The order is the same in every form and every language: "Exponential Foundation and 7x", never "7x and the Exponential Foundation" and never "7x & Exponential Foundation".

The two forms and where each is used #

The visible notice #

Exponential Copyright © 1998-2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x

Used wherever a person reads it on a screen or a page:

In HTML the sign is written ©. Links may sit on the words (the admin footer links "Exponential", "Exponential Foundation" and "7x"), but the text a reader sees is always exactly the notice.

The header form #

Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.

Used in files and metadata: the @copyright line of PHP docblocks, the // COPYRIGHT NOTICE: line of JavaScript and C++ sources, comment headers of templates, style sheets and scripts, <copyright> of extension.xml, 'Copyright' of ezinfo.php, LICENSE and COPYRIGHT.md. "(C)" stands for the copyright sign in plain ASCII, which every file can hold. "All rights reserved" is the traditional closing of a header notice; it does not take away any freedom the GPL gives you (see Questions people ask).

What "copyleft" means #

Copyleft is a way of using copyright to keep software free. The holders use their copyright to attach a license that says: anyone may use, study, change and share this work, on the condition that everyone who passes it on, changed or not, passes on the same freedoms with it. The GNU General Public License is the best-known copyleft license.

The copyright notice and the copyleft belong together. Without a holder, there is nobody who can grant the license or enforce it; without the license, the holder's copyright would forbid copying. The notice says who can enforce the GPL on behalf of everyone who relies on it. That is why the project keeps it precise.

What the GPL means for you #

Exponential's license is the GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version. In short:

If you use Exponential (site owners, editors, administrators) #

• You may run it for any purpose, commercial or not, on as many servers and sites as you like. No fee, no registration, no license key.
• You may change it for your own use. Changes you only run on your own servers, without giving copies to others, create no duty to publish them.
• The notices stay in place. You may not remove the copyright notice or the license from the files, and a footer you change in an override template should keep the notice visible when it shows one.

If you build sites for others (integrators, agencies, hosting companies) #

• You may deliver Exponential to customers, installed or as files, and charge for your work, your support and your hosting.
• When you give a customer a copy (the files of the installation, a repository, an archive), the GPL travels with it: keep LICENSE, COPYRIGHT.md and every notice, and give the customer the source code of what you deliver, including your changes to the kernel.
• Hosting a site for a customer on your servers, without handing over the files, is not distribution under GPL version 2.
• See GPL obligations when distributing and License texts and notices to ship.

If you write extensions (extension authors) #

• Your extension is your work. Its copyright belongs to you (or your employer), and its notice names you, not 7x and not the Foundation.
• An extension that runs inside Exponential and uses its classes and templates is generally treated as a work based on Exponential, so when you distribute it, distribute it under the GPL version 2 or later, or a license compatible with it. Extensions you keep for your own sites need no license at all.
• If your extension contains code copied from Exponential, keep the notice of that code ("Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.") next to yours. See Attribution and copyright notices.

If you fork or redistribute Exponential #

• You may fork it, rename your fork and publish it. Keep every notice, add your own for your changes, and keep the license GPL-2.0-or-later.
• You may not present your fork as the Exponential project or use the notice to suggest that the Foundation or 7x stand behind it.

The support window and why the notice matters for it #

Exponential 6.x is meant to be used for a long time: the project plans releases and fixes for this line over a support window of twenty years and more, in line with a code base whose history goes back to 1998 and that its users have relied on for more than two decades. A release made in 2026 must still be clear about its rights in 2046.

A clear, single notice protects that window:

• Enforcement. Copyleft only works if the holders can be named and can act. One notice, with two holders that can each act, leaves no doubt who can defend the GPL for the users.
• Continuity. With the Foundation as a holder, the rights do not depend on the life of one company.
• Due diligence. Buyers, public bodies and legal departments read the notice first. One form, everywhere, with the same years and names, answers their question in seconds.
• No drift. The test that checks every notice stops new files from reintroducing old spellings.

Contributors and the CLA #

Exponential is written by many people. Their contributions reach the kernel in two ways:

• Code contributions to the kernel (the repository se7enxweb/exponential) are merged after the author has signed the Exponential Foundation and 7x Contributor Licensing Agreement, version 1.1.0 (Exponential Foundation and 7x CLA v1.1.0.pdf on the CLA page). It assigns the copyright in the contribution to the Exponential Foundation and 7x jointly (section 4.1), which become its owners, the Foundation named first as in the notice. The two holders of the notice are thereby also the holders of every merged contribution. Version 1.1.0 (29 October 2026) is the first assignment: the earlier version 1.0.1 only granted 7x a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license (its section 4, from the Apache Individual Contributor License Agreement 2.0), and contributions made under a signed 1.0.1 stay licensed to 7x under it (section 12 of 1.1.0). Section 4.3 keeps a license as a fallback where an assignment is not effective; under section 6 the work is released under the GNU GPL version 2 or later. Read the agreement before you sign: The CLA explained, CONTRIBUTING.md.
• Documentation contributions are part of the same repository (doc/) and covered by the same CLA; the documentation is published under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later (see The license of this documentation).

There is no separate copyright of "the Exponential contributors". Every contributor assigns the copyright in a contribution to the Exponential Foundation and 7x through the CLA, so the project has exactly two copyright holders and the notice names only those two, in code and in the documentation alike. Earlier versions of the documentation's notice added "and the Exponential contributors"; that wording is gone (owner decision of 29 October 2026).

Contributors are credited, and the credit is never removed: in the changelogs, in the authorship of every commit (the git history is the record of who wrote what), on the recognition pages and in the list of contributors on the about page (/ezinfo/about). Credit is not a copyright claim.

Your own extensions, themes and site packages that you keep in your own repositories are not contributions and need no CLA. They carry your notice.

Notices that stay: eZ Systems AS and third-party software #

The GPL requires every copyright notice that came with the code to stay. The project never changes, removes or reorders them. The ones kept on 2026-10-29:

The complete list of these exceptions, with the reason for each, is the file tests/tests/bin/copyright-notice-allowlist.json. Notices that name only other holders need no entry there: the test recognizes them as third-party notices and leaves them alone.

The libraries in vendor/ are not part of this list: they are separate packages with their own license and notices. The kernel's libraries, the expcomponents (since 6.0.15 Exponential's fork of the Zeta Components, licensed under the Apache License 2.0), keep the notices of the Zeta Components development group, the Apache Software Foundation and eZ Systems AS in each package's LICENSE.txt and in their source files, as Apache 2.0 requires; the fork adds its own changes under the same license (Exponential Components).

Writing the notice in new files #

Every new file of the kernel starts with the header form, in the comment style of its language. Keep the layout of the surrounding files: the @copyright line, then the @license line.

PHP #

<?php
/**
 * File containing the expExampleThing class
 *
 * @copyright Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
 * @license GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)
 * @package kernel
 */

A file that also contains code of eZ Systems AS keeps their line directly below:

 * @copyright Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
 * @copyright Copyright (C) eZ Systems AS. All rights reserved.
 * @license For full copyright and license information view LICENSE file distributed with this source code.

JavaScript #

/**
 * Exponential: the bookmark button of the page header.
 *
 * Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
 * GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version).
 */

Older JavaScript and C++ files use the // COPYRIGHT NOTICE: style; keep it in those files:

// COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
// COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Copyright (C) 1999-2014 eZ Systems AS

Templates (.tpl) #

{* The footer of the example page.
   Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
   GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version) *}

INI files, shell and Python scripts #

# Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
# GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)

Style sheets #

/* Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
   GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version) */

Rules for all of them:

• Write the notice exactly: "Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026", a space on each side of the dash, "Exponential Foundation and 7x", a full stop, "All rights reserved." with its full stop.
• Never "7x & Exponential Foundation", "7x and the Exponential Foundation", "7x / Exponential Foundation", "7x and others" or "7x" alone.
• Never remove or reword another holder's line. Add yours above it.
• Do not change the years of an existing line to make it "fit"; the project changes the end year for all files at once, at the turn of the year.

Writing the notice in an extension #

An extension of the project (shipped in the kernel or released by se7enxweb) #

ezinfo.php:

<?php
/**
 * @copyright Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.
 * @license GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)
 */
class exampleextInfo
{
    static function info()
    {
        return array( 'Name' => "Example extension",
                      'Version' => "1.0.0",
                      'Copyright' => "Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.",
                      'License' => "GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)",
                      'Info_url' => "https://github.com/se7enxweb/exampleext" );
    }
}

extension.xml:

<metadata>
    <name>Example extension</name>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <copyright>Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <license>GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)</license>
    <info_url>https://github.com/se7enxweb/exampleext</info_url>
</metadata>

An extension that contains code of eZ Systems AS keeps both notices in one value, the project's first:

<copyright>Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved. Copyright (C) eZ Systems AS. All rights reserved.</copyright>

./console exp:ini:move writes exactly these files when it creates a settings extension.

Your own extension #

Your extension carries your notice, for example:

 * @copyright Copyright (C) 2026 Example Agency GmbH. All rights reserved.
 * @license GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)

Only if you copied code from Exponential into it, add the project's line for that code. Do not put the project's notice on code you wrote: it would give your copyright away on paper.

Showing the notice in a design or theme #

A front-end theme does not have to show the notice. Many sites show their own footer instead, which is their right. If your design shows the software's notice, show it exactly:

<a href="https://exponential.earth">Exponential</a> Copyright &copy; 1998-2026 <a href="https://foundation.exponential.earth">Exponential Foundation</a> and <a href="https://se7enx.com">7x</a>

An override of page_copyright.tpl in your design may move the notice, style it or wrap it in links, but should not change its words.

Translations: the notice is never translated #

The notice is a legal statement and a name, so it reads the same in every language. In the catalogues (share/translations/<locale>/translation.ts) the footer message's translation is the notice itself, in all 156 catalogues; translation-identical-allowlist.json lists it as allowed to stay identical. Translators translate the words around it ("For more information see ezinfo/about", "Powered by ...", "Help center"), never the notice. A translation that changes the notice is a bug.

The German documentation explains the notice in German, but quotes it in its original form: "Exponential Copyright © 1998-2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x".

How the project checks the notice #

• tests/tests/bin/CopyrightNoticeTest.php (PHPUnit, testsuite quality, no database) reads every file of the repository and fails on any line that names 7x or the Exponential Foundation as a copyright holder in a form other than the two approved ones, unless the line is listed in tests/tests/bin/copyright-notice-allowlist.json with its reason.
• tests/tests/design/CopyrightFooterNoticeTest.php checks the footers, the sign-in pages, the setup wizard, the error page, the console, the copyright page and the help, and that no catalogue translates the notice.
• Both run with the continuous integration on every push; the change-based test runner maps changes of any file to the first test.

A line counts as a notice when it has the word "copyright" and a notice marker: "(C)", "©" (or ©), a year, @copyright, <copyright>, 'Copyright' =>, or Copyright= / Copyright:. Prose such as "the Foundation and 7x hold the copyright" is not a notice and is not checked.

The documentation's own license #

This documentation is free documentation under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.3 or any later version. Its notice names the same holders; see The license of this documentation and Free documentation. The pages inherited from the original software keep the notice of eZ Systems AS and their own terms.

Questions people ask #

Does "All rights reserved" contradict the GPL? No. It is the traditional ending of a copyright notice and means the holders keep their copyright. The GPL is the permission the holders give on top of it; you keep every freedom the license grants.

Why 1998? 1998 is the first year of the notice of the project's own work, as it has read since the 6.x line began. eZ Systems AS's work is dated separately, 1999 to 2014.

Does the order of the names mean the Foundation owns more? No share is implied by the order. Both are holders. The Foundation is named first for the reasons above.

To whom do I assign my contribution under the CLA? To the Exponential Foundation and 7x together, which become its owners and may use, change, relicense and distribute it. Since version 1.1.0 of the CLA (29 October 2026) the agreement names both, in the same order as the notice; version 1.0.1 had been a non-exclusive license to 7x, not an assignment. Your own extensions are not affected.

Why doesn't the notice name the contributors? Because they hold no separate copyright in Exponential. Every contribution is assigned to the Exponential Foundation and 7x through the Contributor Licensing Agreement, so those two are the only holders, and a notice names holders. The people who did the work are credited by name in the changelogs, the commit history and the recognition pages; that credit is not a copyright claim.

Did the license change on 29 October 2026? No. Only the holder notice changed. The license is still the GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version, and its text is unchanged.

I quoted the old notice in my own documentation. Do I have to change it? Your text is yours. We recommend quoting the current notice in anything new.

My extension's ezinfo.php says "Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 7x & Exponential Foundation". Is that wrong now? If the extension is one of the project's, its next release fixes it. If it is your own extension that copied the project's metadata as a template, replace the notice with your own.

Can I remove the notice from the footer of my site? The GPL is about the source code: keep every notice in the files. A footer is part of your site's design, and a customized front-end footer does not have to show the software's notice. The administration's footer belongs to the software; leave it as it is.

Where to read more #

• LICENSE and LICENSE.md: the license text, with the holder notice above it.
• COPYRIGHT.md: the copyright notice of the project, with this history.
• The license of this documentation
• Free documentation: use it to help yourself and others
• Attribution and copyright notices
• Copyright and author lines of an extension
• Copyright notices in files
• The CLA explained
• GPL obligations when distributing
• The Exponential Foundation and 7x
• The 6.0.15 changelog