Data & Software Licensing Policy

Version 2026-08-17 · Agenthon 2026 — NeurIPS 2026 Competition Track · AH26-POL-04
Policy set: Official Competition Rules · Terms of Participation · Privacy Notice · Data & Software Licensing Policy

This Policy separates the terms that apply to Organizer-provided data, public starter code, private benchmark materials, third-party resources, participant submissions, and winner reproducibility releases.

Core principle. A software license, a dataset license, a submission license, and a winner reproducibility obligation are distinct. The resource-specific license or data-use agreement controls for that resource.

1. Scope and precedence

This Policy explains the licensing and use restrictions for resources used in Agenthon 2026. Where a repository, dataset, model, API, or other asset includes its own license, data-use agreement, access terms, or notice, those resource-specific terms control for that asset.

The Terms of Participation control the limited license granted by participants to the Organizers. Mandatory law and signed agreements control where applicable.

2. Resource categories

3. Organizer-provided public software and data

• Each public repository should contain a clear LICENSE file and relevant third-party notices. That license governs copying, modification, redistribution, and reuse; this Policy does not replace it.
• Examples, baselines, smoke scorers, schemas, and participant utilities may be reused outside the Competition only to the extent their published license permits.
• Each dataset or corpus should identify its source, permitted purpose, redistribution status, citation or attribution requirements, and any access, retention, or deletion conditions.
• Open data licenses govern open reuse. Competition-only or restricted data may be used only for the stated purpose and may not be redistributed, published, re-identified, or retained beyond the applicable terms.
• Privacy, confidentiality, market-data, exchange, publisher, contractual, and database restrictions continue during and after the Competition. Data access does not grant trademark or logo rights.

4. Private test and evaluation materials

Private-test units, hidden labels, oracle solutions, final scoring logic, canary registries, audit materials, non-public manifests, and equivalent evaluation assets are confidential Competition materials. Participants receive no general license to inspect or reuse them.

• Do not access or extract private-test materials outside the authorized scoring interface.
• Do not retain, reproduce, publish, redistribute, reconstruct, or share private-test content inadvertently exposed through an error.
• Stop accessing and promptly report suspected exposure or leakage to admin@agenthon.net. Good-faith reporting is encouraged.

The Organizers may preserve private evaluation materials for audit, scientific analysis, or benchmark maintenance, subject to applicable rights and governance restrictions.

5. External software, models, and services

• Open-source libraries, pretrained models, public research code, and other software may be used only when permitted by the track and underlying license.
• Participants must comply with copyleft, attribution, notices, source-disclosure, acceptable-use, model-license, export-control, and other requirements.
• A container must not redistribute a component contrary to its license. If use is allowed but redistribution is not, the team must follow an approved deployment or acquisition path.
• Commercial or proprietary tools and services are allowed only where track instructions permit and where their use is compatible with evaluation and reproducibility requirements.
• External runtime network access is prohibited unless the evaluation environment expressly provides it.

6. External data and information cutoffs

• Public external data may be used only if the track permits it, the participant has lawful access, and the data comply with any cutoff or embargo.
• Private employer or customer data, purchased data with non-transferable restrictions, confidential sponsor or Question Partner data, and information obtained through privileged access are prohibited unless expressly authorized with documented permission.
• Information after a track’s as-of date may not be used even if it becomes public during development.
• Derived features, embeddings, retrieval indexes, caches, fine-tuned weights, and synthetic data can carry leakage from prohibited sources and must independently comply.

7. Resource and provenance declaration

Prize-eligible teams, and any others specified by track instructions, must provide a declaration sufficient to understand and lawfully reproduce the material inputs to the submission. The declaration should identify, as applicable:

• datasets and corpora, including source, version/date, access conditions, and license or data-use terms;
• pretrained or fine-tuned models, versions, providers, model licenses, and material training/update dates relevant to a cutoff;
• major libraries/frameworks and their licenses;
• commercial tools, APIs, hosted services, or proprietary dependencies used in development or required for reproduction;
• human-curated resources, manual labels, purchased data, or third-party contributions;
• AI-agent or language-model tools used materially where disclosure is required by track or NeurIPS policy; and
• known redistribution restrictions and the proposed lawful reproduction path.

8. Participant submissions — private by default

Participants retain ownership of participant-authored Submission Materials. The Organizers receive only the limited license in the Terms to operate, evaluate, privately verify, report, secure, and promote the Competition. Submission does not place code under an open-source license or authorize public release.

Ordinary submissions remain private unless the participant independently publishes them or the winner-release rule applies to a separate reproducibility package.

9. Three-stage reproducibility and winner release

• The public package should include code, build/run instructions, dependencies, configuration, and sufficient documentation to reproduce the method in a compatible environment.
• It may be a cleaned public repository and need not be the exact private container or verification package.
• Secrets and third-party software, datasets, models, weights, or artifacts need not be published or relicensed when the team lacks the right to do so.
• A non-redistributable dependency must be documented with lawful acquisition, deterministic build steps, a permitted substitute, or another approved reproduction path.
• The original Organizer-held submission remains private unless separately authorized. A team may not select a license that purports to grant rights in third-party material it does not control.
• Failure to complete the public release may forfeit the prize but does not transfer ownership of the private submission.

10. Model weights, artifacts, publications, and citation

• Public release of model weights or large artifacts is required only when the track or prize rules expressly require it and the participant has the right to release them.
• The default winner obligation is sufficient participant-authored code and documentation, not automatic publication of the original private container, secrets, proprietary dependencies, or every artifact.
• If no reasonable and lawful reproduction path exists, the Organizers may determine that the result is not prize-eligible.
• Participants should cite Agenthon and underlying datasets/software as requested in the relevant documentation when publishing research based on Competition resources.
• The Organizers may publish leaderboard data, benchmark-level statistics, aggregate failure analyses, and other Competition results under the Official Rules and Terms. Publication of a participant-authored paper or non-public technical report requires author permission.
• Dataset embargoes, publication restrictions, citation requirements, and provider approvals continue after the Competition.

11. Security, privacy, compatibility, and no implied rights

• Do not include personal data, credentials, confidential client or employer information, regulated data, or unnecessary secrets in repositories or containers.
• If a track uses sensitive data, its terms must specify governance, permitted purpose, re-identification restrictions, retention/deletion, and publication constraints. Personal data is handled under the Privacy Notice.
• Participants are responsible for license compatibility in submissions and public releases.
• Neither participation nor this Policy grants patent, trademark, database, market-data, or third-party content rights except where an applicable license expressly does so. No rights are granted by implication or estoppel.

12. Changes and contact

The Organizers may update this Policy to clarify resource terms, correct licensing mistakes, add newly released resources, or address legal or security issues. Material changes affecting a currently permitted resource will be announced and, where practicable, applied prospectively. A resource-specific license or signed data-use agreement controls over this general Policy.

Licensing, data-use, and reproducibility questions: admin@agenthon.net. Additional published contacts: admin@sqa-us.org and info@cewit.org. Raise material license questions before incorporating a resource into a final submission.