Evaluation License

Effective date: November 24, 2025

1. Definitions

i. "Evaluation Materials" means the Container Images, Documentation, Helm charts, APIs, and any other software, data, or materials provided by Licensor to Licensee under this License.
ii. "Container Images" means the pre-built, containerized software images of the OpenBB Workspace platform provided by Licensor to Licensee in a container registry under this License.
iii. "Documentation" means the written materials, deployment guides, configuration instructions, and technical specifications provided by Licensor to Licensee for the use and deployment of the Evaluation Materials.
iv. "Evaluation Period" means the period of 30 days commencing on the Effective Date.
v. "Confidential Information" means the Evaluation Materials and any other non-public information disclosed by Licensor or otherwise obtained by Licensee in connection with this License.

2. Grant of License

i. Evaluation License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Licensor hereby grants to Licensee a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license, during the Evaluation Period, to:
- (1) Deploy, install, run, and use the Evaluation Materials in accordance with the Documentation and solely within Licensee's own infrastructure (either on-premise or VPC), and
- (2) Integrate with the OpenBB Workspace platform via the API provided by Licensor to develop and test Licensee's own client applications for such integration;
in each case of the foregoing (1) and (2), solely for Licensee's internal evaluation of the Evaluation Materials.
ii. Open Source Components. Certain component of the Evaluation Materials may be covered by an open source license (such component, the "OSS Component"). The parties agree that the terms of the open source license applicable to such OSS Component will apply to such OSS Component and that to the extent there is any conflict between the terms of this License and such open source license, such open source license shall prevail with respect to such OSS Component.

3. Restrictions

i. Licensee shall not, and shall not permit any third party to:
- (1) Access the internal filesystem of any running Container Image via SSH, shell, or any other interactive method.
- (2) Extract, copy, or exfiltrate any files, code, or data from the Container Images using commands such as docker cp, docker export, or any other means.
- (3) Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code or underlying structure of the Evaluation Materials.
- (4) Modify the Evaluation Materials except for configuration overlays (e.g., environment variables, configuration files mounted at runtime), or create any artifacts that contain, are derived from, or are a copy of any portion of the Evaluation Materials.
- (5) Redistribute, sublicense, lease, loan, sell, or otherwise transfer the Evaluation Materials to any third party, or use it for the benefit of a third party.
- (6) Embed any of the Evaluation Materials or any portion thereof into any other product or service.
- (7) Remove, modify, or obscure any proprietary rights notices, license text, or evaluation markers (e.g., watermarks, banners) from any of the Evaluation Materials.
- (8) Use the Evaluation Materials for any production, commercial, or revenue-generating purpose, or for any purpose other than as expressly licensed hereunder.
- (9) Use the Evaluation Materials in any way that violates any laws or infringes any third party rights.
ii. Licensee shall indemnify and hold Licensor harmless from any third party claims arising from Licensee's breach of any of the foregoing restrictions.

4. Intellectual Property

i. All right, title, and interest in and to the Evaluation Materials, including all related intellectual property rights, are and shall remain the exclusive property of Licensor. Licensee acknowledges that it is receiving only a limited license to use the Evaluation Materials as expressly permitted herein.
ii. Licensee retains all of its right, title, and interest in and to any intellectual property it develops independently without use of any Confidential Information of Licensor, including its own integration code, API clients, scripts, and configuration files, but excluding any artifacts that contain, are derived from, or are a copy of any portion of the Evaluation Materials.
iii. Licensee may, in its sole discretion, provide suggestions, feedback, or comments about the Evaluation Materials (the "Feedback"), and agrees that Licensor has the right to use the Feedback freely to develop, improve, and provide its products and services without any restriction or obligation.

5. Confidentiality

Licensee agrees to treat the Evaluation Materials as Confidential Information of Licensor. Licensee shall use the same degree of care to protect the Confidential Information as it uses to protect its own confidential information of a similar nature, but in no event less than reasonable care. Licensee may disclose Confidential Information only to its employees and contractors who have a need to know for the purposes of this evaluation and who are bound by written confidentiality obligations at least as protective as those herein.

6. Data & Telemetry

i. Default Telemetry: The Evaluation Materials installed within Licensee's infrastructure do not collect or transmit any telemetry, usage data, or logs to Licensor by default.
ii. Diagnostic Data: The Evaluation Materials hosted within Licensor's infrastructure may collect certain logs, metadata, technical, usage, and diagnostic information relating to the provision, use and performance of the Evaluation Materials ("Diagnostic Data"), which does not include any personal data. Licensor agrees to only use the Diagnostic Data to provide the services to Licensee.

7. Support

i. Support Model: Licensor may provide remote support to Licensee during the Evaluation Period. This support will be conducted via screen-sharing sessions (e.g., Zoom, Teams) only.
ii. No Direct Access: Licensor will not have, and Licensee shall not grant, any direct access to Licensee's infrastructure, systems, or networks.
iii. Support Requests: Licensee may request support by submitting a request to support@openbb.finance. Licensor will acknowledge support requests within one (1) business day.
iv. SLA: Licensor will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide it's the support that it generally provides to its evaluation customers without charges during Licensor's business hours (9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, excluding US federal holidays).

8. Warranty Disclaimers

THE EVALUATION MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. LICENSOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE PERFORMANCE OR SUITABILITY OF THE EVALUATION MATERIALS IN LICENSEE'S ENVIRONMENT.

9. Limitations of Liability

IN NO EVENT SHALL LICENSOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR USE, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS LICENSE, EVEN IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. LICENSOR'S TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS LICENSE SHALL NOT EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($500).

10. Return & Destruction

Upon the expiration or termination of this License, Licensee shall have 10 days to:

(1) Cease all use of the Evaluation Materials;
(2) Permanently delete all copies of the Evaluation Materials from all systems and storage media; and
(3) Provide Licensor with a written certification of destruction, signed by an authorized officer of Licensee.

11. Term & Termination

Either party may terminate this License immediately upon written notice if the other party breaches any material term of this License and fails to cure such breach within ten (10) days of receiving notice. Upon termination, all rights granted to Licensee shall cease, and the obligations in Sections 3 (Restrictions), 4 (Intellectual Property), 5 (Confidentiality), 8 (Warranty Disclaimers), 9 (Limitations of Liabilities), 10 (Return & Destruction), 13 (Governing Law), and 14 (Miscellaneous) shall survive.

12. Export Controls and Compliance

Licensee is solely responsible for complying with all applicable export and import control laws and regulations, including those of the United States and the jurisdiction in which it operates. Licensee represents and warrants that it is not located in, and is not a national or resident of, any country or territory subject to any U.S. sanctions.

13. Governing Law

This License shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of laws principles. Any legal action arising out of or relating to this License shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New York, New York.

14. Miscellaneous

This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties concerning the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior or contemporaneous agreements, representations, warranties, and understandings, whether written or oral. In the event that any of the provisions of this Agreement shall be held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be unenforceable, such provisions shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that this Agreement shall otherwise remain in full force and effect and enforceable.

TL;DR: We are open-sourcing the entire OpenBB product suite under a permissive open source license

Today is bittersweet.

On December 20, 2020, over the Christmas holidays, I wrote the first lines of Gamestonk Terminal, what would eventually become OpenBB. My flight home to visit my parents had been cancelled because of COVID, so I stayed in London and started building a tool to streamline my own investment research process.

At the time, the idea was simple: individuals (and firms) should be able to own their research platforms. They shouldn't have to adapt their workflows to whatever a data or software vendor decided to build. They should own the entire experience - from the data they connect to, to the interface analysts and PMs use every day, to the APIs, models, skills, tools and AI agents that increasingly form part of the investment process.

Over the last almost six years, OpenBB evolved far beyond anything I imagined when writing those first lines of code. We started as an open-source terminal and went on to build the SDK (now Open Data Platform), the OpenBB Bot, the OpenBB Workspace, the OpenBB Copilot, the Excel Add-in, and an ecosystem of applications created by our team, our partners and the community.

We kept innovating and being at the forefront of what user experience should be. I was prepared to die on the hill that if we were to become the financial infrastructure software for the buy-side and sell-side, then we could not monetize data. Monetizing data would have made us a data vendor. The margins would have been higher, but the incentive would have shifted from offering a better UI/UX to selling more datasets. Selling an infrastructure platform is incredibly challenging, for many reasons. And so we died on that hill. Along the way, we built an incredible community, reached millions of people through our open-source project, worked with some of the largest financial institutions in the world and assembled a team that consistently built far beyond what should have been possible for a company of 10 people. There is a lot to be proud of.

But despite all of that, we couldn't find the product-market fit needed to build a sustainable business around this vision within the time we had.

As a founder, I've always bet the house on the next customer, the next feature or the next launch to change the trajectory of the company. Until even just last weeks, when we announced self-serve Workspace Lite. If we were ever going to close doors, then we never wanted to look back and think "what if".

In hindsight, we could obviously have made different decisions - e.g., surrounding data, or going more vertical with clients and their workflows. But short-term monetization was not something I was prioritizing over where I thought the industry was heading. Ultimately, I wanted us to stand for something.

In the last phase of the company, I explored many paths to give OpenBB a better home. We spoke with larger companies that shared parts of our vision and tried to find a home where the products, and ideally the team behind them, could continue to grow. Ultimately, we weren't able to make that happen.

I left London with my wife to build OpenBB and dedicated almost six years of my life to it. So did the team. We built at the intersection of finance, AI, open source and software infrastructure, often working on problems before they became obvious to the broader market.

Before MCP existed, we had created our own API protocol so agents could interact with the data and analytics widgets in the workspace. In 2023, we built askobb, which let anyone ask investment research questions in natural language that required joining multiple different datasets together.

What this team created deserves to continue existing.

More importantly, I still believe the original vision is inevitable. The future of financial software is not a single platform every firm is forced to use. It is thousands of firms building environments that reflect how they actually work - their own data, internal systems, investment processes, risk models and compliance requirements. Increasingly, their own APIs, MCP servers, models and AI agents too.

If that future is coming, then the technology we built shouldn't disappear simply because we weren't able to commercialize it successfully.

It should become available to everyone.

Today, with the support of the team and OSS Capital, we are committing to releasing the entire OpenBB product suite under a permissive license. This includes OpenBB Workspace, Open Data Platform, OpenBB Copilot and the OpenBB Excel Add-in.

These products represent over 5 years of engineering, millions of dollars invested in R&D and thousands of decisions, experiments and iterations with users. They will become a foundation that individuals, startups, data providers and financial institutions can freely use, modify and build on top of.

We will share more details about the order and timing of each release as we complete that work. In parallel, we will determine the right long-term structure to steward the projects, support contributors and preserve what made OpenBB special in the first place. Existing customers and users of the hosted products will hear from us directly about timelines.

For the partners who built applications for the OpenBB ecosystem, I hope this decision makes your products even more valuable. You already did the work of turning your datasets and analytics into applications that users can interact with. Now, those applications will be able to run inside infrastructure that firms can fully own, extend and customize, while combining them with data and tools from other providers across the ecosystem.

The same applies to the broader community. Developers will be able to use the entire OpenBB stack as a starting point rather than rebuilding the same infrastructure from scratch. Firms will be able to deploy it, adapt it to their requirements and connect it to the systems where their differentiated knowledge already lives.

Over the years, many talented people helped make OpenBB what it is today - employees, contributors, partners. Every one of them left a mark on the product.

But I want to recognize the people who carried OpenBB to the very end. Through the uncertainty and the final stretch, they kept building. They are engineers, product builders, designers and operators who have worked across financial data, AI, developer infrastructure and open source. In alphabetical order, they are:

Andrew Kenreich, Head of Product Engineering - LinkedIn
Darren Lee, Software Engineer - GitHub, LinkedIn
Ihsan Saracgil, CPO - LinkedIn
José Donato, Software Engineer - LinkedIn, X, GitHub, Website
Juan Alfonso, Software Engineer - GitHub, LinkedIn
Minh Hoang, Head of Product - LinkedIn, GitHub
Ogonna Nnamani, DevOps - LinkedIn, Medium
Rita Figueiredo, Head of Marketing - LinkedIn, Website
Rita Soares, Head of Design - LinkedIn, Website
Theodore Aptekarev, CTO - LinkedIn, GitHub

To our customers: thank you for trusting a small team with such an ambitious vision.

To our partners: thank you for building alongside us and helping create a more open financial data ecosystem. I hope the next chapter gives you even more freedom to serve your users.

To our investors: thank you for believing in us, including when OpenBB was little more than an idea being built from my living room in London. In particular, I want to thank OSS Capital and Joseph Jacks for supporting this decision and enabling the technology to live beyond the company. Two people I want to name separately: Justin Hoffman and Larry Augustin - working with both of you made me a better founder, but more importantly, a better person.

To every contributor who opened a pull request, reported a bug, wrote documentation, answered a question in Discord, built an integration or simply told someone else about OpenBB: thank you. OpenBB would not have been possible without you.

Finally, to every person who spent part of their career building OpenBB: thank you. We pushed the industry forward and proved that world-class financial infrastructure can be built in the open. The commercial outcome doesn't change the quality of the work.

OpenBB didn't become the company I imagined when I started this journey. But the mission was always larger than the company, and I still believe the ideas behind it are right.

If, ten years from now, firms around the world are using OpenBB as the foundation for software they truly own - connecting their own data, building their own workflows and deploying their own AI agents - then what we built will have achieved something that lasts far beyond us; which was my goal all along: have an impact.

Thank you for one hell of a ride.

Didier Lopes
(LinkedIn, X, GitHub)