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Trademark & Licensing

Learn how the Open edX name, logo, and software can be used under our licensing guidelines.

Trademark & Licensing

Effective Date: July 26, 2022

This Policy covers general rules for referring to the Open edX platform and using trademarks, service marks, and logos that Axim Collaborative (the “Organization” or “Org”) may license to you (collectively, “Org Marks”).

The following is a non-exhaustive list of Org Marks:

  • Open edX®*

* Note: The Organization is an authorized licensee of the Open edX® trademark and this Mark is used by the Organization with permission of 2U, LLC, the trademark owner.

Trademark guidelines for several of the Marks are linked below. The Organization reserves the right to change the terms of this Policy or any guidelines at any time, in its sole discretion, by posting the updated Policy or guidelines to the Open edX website. To ask any questions about this Policy or to report any unauthorized use of the Marks, please email trademarks@axim.org.

General Rule: Permission Required

As a rule, a trademark license is required in order to use any Org Mark. Except for the three exceptions outlined below, this Policy does not count as “permission to use” any trademarks, and there are no “open-source” pre-approved use cases. To request permission to use any Org Mark, please email trademarks@axim.org

Exceptions

Without a separate trademark license: 

  • Without a separate trademark license:
    You may use the Org Mark in text for the sole purpose of referring to or describing the Organization’s websites, products, and services. For example: if you have a product or service that is compatible with the Open edX platform, you may use “Open edX” to describe the compatibility, such as “runs on,” “for use on,” or “compatible with” the Open edX platform.
  • If you use the Open edX platform:
    • you should add the “Powered by Open edX” logo in the footer of each page of your website, and the logo should include a live link to the Open edX website. See the Powered by Open edX logo page for variants of this logo and instructions on how to add it to your instance; and
    • you may use the “Powered by Open edX” logo on any course certificates or other credentials issued in connection with your instance in accordance with the Open edX trademark guidelines linked below.
  • If you offer services and/or products that support the Open edX platform, you may use the “Open edX” word mark in the path of a URL for your website for such services and/or products. For clarity, this exception applies solely to (1) the “Open edX” word mark and not to any other Org Mark and (2) use in the path of a URL; you may not use the “Open edX” word mark or any other Org Mark in a website domain.
  • For example:
  • openedx.yourdomain.org
  • www.yourdomain.com/services/openedx

Specifications for Use

All uses of Org Mark must comply with the applicable trademark guidelines and also:

  • Identify the Open edX mark as a registered trademark®. The above-listed Org Mark is registered by the Organization or the applicable trademark owner in a number of countries around the world. For the first and most prominent usage of the above-listed Org Mark in any context, use the symbol “®” after the Org Mark as a notice to third parties of the trademark owner’s rights in the Org Mark. (Later uses on that same website, document, or other material do not need to be marked.)
  • Include a trademark attribution statement. Include a trademark attribution statement. If an Org Mark appears on your website, document, or other material, add the following attribution statement that identifies the trademark owner: “Open edX is a registered trademark of edX LLC. All Rights Reserved.” The statement must be in a legible font and size at the bottom of your website or the end of your advertisement or publication. Additionally, any use of the Open edX logo on a website must include a live link to the Open edX website.
  • Use Org Marks only as adjectives. Trademarks are adjectives, and an Org Mark should be used only to describe the Organization’s websites, products, or services to which the trademark applies for example, the “Open edX platform”, the “Open edX community.”.
  • Use Org Marks less prominently than your own. Except where otherwise expressly permitted by the Organization, any use of an Org Mark must appear less prominent than your own product or service name.
  • Do NOT change the spelling or appearance of any Org Mark. Do not abbreviate, hyphenate, create acronyms; change the spelling, capitalization, or appearance; add or delete any words or spacing; change any color or proportion; or otherwise modify the logo or design of an Org Mark in any way. Only use an approved logo rendition as provided by the Organization.
  • Do NOT use or register a domain name with any Org Mark. Your domain names may not include any Org Mark or other words that are confusingly similar to an Org Mark. Examples of unacceptable domains include:
  • openedx.yourdomain
  • openedxyourdomain.org
  • yourdomain-openedx.com

 

  • Do NOT use any Org Mark as your own. You may not use, incorporate, combine, or register in whole or in part any Org Mark or any word or design that is confusingly similar to an Org Mark as part of (or with) your own company names, trade names, trademarks, service marks, or logos; your product or service brand names or titles for sales reps or other staff; your internet keywords or metatags; or your trigger words to lead to a website or other Internet destination, product, business, or service.
  • Do NOT imply any Organization endorsement or sponsorship. Without the express prior written consent of the Organization, you may not use any Org Marks to imply an affiliation with the Organization or any approval, sponsorship, or endorsement by the Organization of your company, website, products, or services.
  • Do NOT use Org Mark in any way that damages the Organization. You may not use the Org Mark in a manner that disparages the Organization, its products or services, or the Open edX community or damages the Organization’s brand integrity, including use of any Org Mark in a manner that is offensive, defamatory, illegal, or unethical.


The above specifications are not a comprehensive list of approved or unauthorized uses of any Org Mark. If the Organization determines at any time, in its sole discretion, that your use of any Org Mark violates this Policy, any trademark guidelines or is otherwise unacceptable or detrimental, the Organization may revoke permission, and you must immediately cease all use of the Org Mark. 

Open edX Licensing Approach Overview:

The Open edX project uses both the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3) and the Apache 2.0 open-source license. The code in the Open edX platform is spread across a number of repositories on GitHub under the open-edx GitHub organization, and each repository is licensed under either the AGPL or the Apache license.

The Open edX platform code generally falls into three main categories, described as follows. Each category has its own licensing considerations. 

 

  • Code that is part of the core Open edX platform is AGPLv3.
    This license helps ensure that all changes to the platform are shared, guaranteeing that the platform is truly an open resource and that everyone will benefit from the improvements. This includes, but is not limited to, edx-platform edx-configuration edx-ora2

  • Code used by others to access Open edX platform APIs is generally Apache.
    The propagating nature of the AGPL makes it difficult for some people to adopt. For repositories where broad use is more important than shared improvements, the Open edX project generally uses the Apache license. This includes API libraries such as XBlock.


  • Broad interest, or developer, tools are often Apache, too.
    These are tools that may have nothing in particular to do with the Open edX platform and that do not run as part of the platform. They could be of interest to any Python developer, for example. Tools like this will often be Apache-licensed to enable their broader use and adoption. This includes tools such as bok choy.


To figure out which license a given repository uses, read the licensing file contained in the relevant GitHub repository.