Licence
Foundation is released under the MIT licence. The text below is the LICENSE file that ships in the repository and with every build. The provenance below records the chain of title from Dave Batton to Walt Nelson to Wayne Stewart, and the conditions of the 2026 assignment.
MIT License Copyright (c) 1993-2008 Dave Batton Copyright (c) 2008-2026 Walt Nelson Copyright (c) 2026 Wayne Stewart 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.
Provenance
This file records who has owned Foundation (also known as Foundation Shell), how ownership passed to the current maintainer, and the conditions attached to its open-source release.
Chain of title
| Period | Owner | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 – October 2008 | Dave Batton | Original author. Foundation dates from 1993 (Walt Nelson, 4DMethod #6: Foundation Shell for 4D, YouTube, at 33:01); the earliest method headers in this repository are dated 2003. |
| October 2008 – 11 September 2026 | Walt Nelson (Nelson Consulting, Inc.) | Acquired all rights from Dave Batton in or about October 2008; the purchase was announced to the developer community on 21 February 2009. |
| 11 September 2026 – present | Wayne Stewart | Deed of Assignment dated 2026-09-11. |
The Deed of Assignment
On 11 September 2026 Nelson Consulting, Inc. and Walt Nelson (together the Assignor) assigned to Wayne Stewart (the Assignee), without payment, all right, title and interest in Foundation in every version, including source code, forms, resources and documentation, together with the names "Foundation" and "Foundation Shell", the goodwill attaching to them, and the domain name foundationshell.com.
The Assignor warranted that it was the sole owner of the rights assigned, that it had not assigned, exclusively licensed or otherwise encumbered them, and that every licence previously granted to its customers is non-exclusive.
Nothing in the deed restricts the Assignor, or any existing customer of the Assignor, from continuing to use the software.
Conditions of the assignment
The Assignee undertook to:
- Release the software under an OSI-approved permissive licence (MIT or Apache 2.0) by 1 December 2026. The MIT licence was chosen.
- Permanently retain the names of Dave Batton and Walt Nelson in the credits, About box and documentation as the authors of the versions each wrote, and keep the modification history intact.
- Not sell the software or the rights assigned.
Condition 2 is why the Created by and Modified by lines in method headers, and the chronology in aaaMods, are treated as load-bearing and are never removed by any automated sweep. Contributors are asked to preserve them.
The signed instrument
The signed deed is held privately by Wayne Stewart and is not committed to this repository. It is available on request to anyone with a legitimate need to verify title, for example a downstream adopter's legal review.
Contact: wayne@4dtoday.com