Copyright & License

This document describes the copyright ownership, authorship, and licensing terms for WGSL: A Primer.

Project Lineage & Authorship

WGSL: A Primer is a modernized, rewritten, and expanded fork of the archived original 2023 Tour of WGSL.

Contributors & Maintainers

Michael R. Bernstein (Active): Modern fork author and primary maintainer. Developer of the modern fixed-size/runtime array layouts, workgroup/subgroup timeline visualizers, bitwise operator material, uniformity analysis cases, and static linters.
Legacy Upstream Creators (Upstream Licensing): Authors of the foundational 2023 content structure, core visualizer backing systems, and original WebGPU simulation engines:
- Ben Clayton (@ben-clayton) — Core upstream developer, Tint/compiler architect.
- Dan Sinclair (@dj2) — Upstream author, former WGSL specification editor, and key curriculum contributor.
- David Neto (@dneto0) — Tint team lead, compiler engineer, and WGSL specification editor.

Third-Party Assets & Logos

WebGPU / WGSL Logo: The official WebGPU/WGSL logo utilized on this site (under docs/images/logo.svg and docs/images/webgpu-white.svg) was created by Brandon Jones in 2021 and is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Licensing: Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license.
Attribution: "WebGPU logo by W3C"

Licensing Architecture

To support open education while respecting both original upstream authors and modern advancements, WGSL: A Primer uses a multi-tiered licensing structure:

graph TD
    Project["WGSL: A Primer"] --> Content["Curriculum Prose & Text"]
    Project --> Code["Software & Infrastructure"]
    Project --> Upstream["Upstream Code & Structure"]

    Content --> |"Copyright ©2026 Michael R. Bernstein"| CC["Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0"]
    Code --> |"Copyright ©2026 Michael R. Bernstein"| Apache["Apache License 2.0"]
    Upstream --> |"Copyright ©2023 Upstream Creators"| BSD["BSD 3-Clause License"]

1. Curriculum Content & Prose (CC-BY 4.0)

All lessons, guides, explanations, diagrams, mathematical formulas, and tutorial text added or modified in 2026 are:

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license.

CC-BY 4.0 Summary

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

The full license terms are available in the root file LICENSE-TEXT.

2. Software & Infrastructure (Apache 2.0)

All site configurations, python build hooks, build utilities, newly created interactive TypeScript visualizer modules, and custom stylesheets added or modified in 2026 are:

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").

Apache 2.0 Summary

You are free to:

Use — run, test, and execute the software for any purpose, including commercial applications.
Modify & Distribute — change, copy, and distribute the code under Apache 2.0 terms.
Patent Grant — receive a royalty-free, perpetual patent license granted by the contributors.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must include a copy of the license, retain copyright and trademark notices, and clearly state if you made changes to the files.
Warranty & Liability — All software is provided "as is," without any warranty or liability of any kind.

You may not use these files except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

The full license terms are available in the root file LICENSE-CODE.

3. Upstream Code & Structure (BSD 3-Clause)

Where files combine both upstream and modern work (derivative work), they are dual-licensed: modern 2026 contributions are licensed under Apache 2.0 (for code) or CC-BY 4.0 (for prose), while original 2023 BSD 3-Clause copyrights are preserved intact. Newly created or fully rewritten files are governed solely by the 2026 license terms.