Licenses

A repository-by-repository license census for the fleet, plus the third-party licenses each toolchain bundles or links.

Every license below was read from the license file itself, not from a README summary. Repositories that declare nothing are listed too: a missing license file is a fact you need. This is what the files say. It is not legal advice.

The census in numbers

The five identities are PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, MIT, GPL-3.0, a proprietary all rights reserved notice, and one PolyForm text carrying no copyright holder.

Frameworks and toolchains

Shared services and components

Game repositories that carry a license file

One more repository in the fleet carries a proprietary all rights reserved notice. That same file says the repository is meant to stay private, so this site does not name, link or describe it until its owner has been asked.

Repositories with no license file

This site does not state or imply a license for repositories that carry no license file.

mstan, Game Boy Advance (11). DragonBallZLegacyOfGokuRecomp, DragonBallZLegacyofGokuIIRecomp, EmeraldRecomp, FireRedLeafGreenRecomp, RubySapphireRecomp, MarioKartSuperCircuitRecomp, MegaManZeroRecomp, ShrekGBAVideoRecomp, SuperMarioAdvance2Recomp, SuperMarioAdvance4Recomp, WarioWareTwistedRecomp.

mstan, NES (10). DrMarioNesRecomp, DuckHuntNESRecomp, FaxanaduRecomp, GumshoeNESRecomp, LegendOfZeldaNESRecomp, Megaman3NESRecomp, MetroidNESRecomp, SuperMarioBrosNESRecomp, YoshiNESRecomp, YoshisCookieRecomp.

mstan, SNES (5). MegaManXSNESRecomp, StarFoxSNESRecomp, SuperMarioWorldRecomp, SuperMetroidRecomp, ZeldaAlttPSNESRecomp.

mstan, Game Gear, Master System, Genesis (5). SonicBlastGGRecomp, SonicTheHedgehogSMSRecomp, smsggrecomp, Sonic3AndKnucklesRecomp, SonicTheHedgehog2Recomp.

TechnicallyComputers (11). Bomberman-Fantasy-Race-Recomp, Bomberman-World-Recomp, BombermanPartyEditionRecomp, Klonoa-Door-to-Phantomile, Marvel-vs.-Capcom-Clash-of-Super-Heroes-Recomp, MastersOfTerasKasiRecomp, Metal-Slug-X-Recomp, Rampage---Through-Time-Recomp, Street-Fighter-Alpha-3-Recomp, TwistedMetal4Recomp, retcomm-catalog.

Others (2). PeriBluGaming/ToyStory2Recomp, Team-Resurgent/MegaManX-X.

Repositories that state the position themselves

Several of them say so in the README. Where a project says it, the project is quoted.

From README.md:

## License

Not yet declared. Code in this repo is original. The *Sonic Blast* ROM and any
data derived from it are **not** in this repo and are not licensed for
redistribution.

From README.md:

## License

Not yet declared. Original project code and vendored dependencies retain their
respective ownership and licensing status. The *Star Fox* ROM and all data
extracted from it are not part of this repository and are not licensed for
redistribution.

Team-Resurgent/MegaManX-X and mstan/MegaManXSNESRecomp carry an identical third wording, adding that vendored dependencies under third_party/ retain their own licenses.

One repository uses a different phrase. MetroidNESRecomp's README.md calls the nesrecomp framework and its own game code "provided as-is for educational and research purposes". That sentence is MetroidNESRecomp's. The nesrecomp framework it names is PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, so the phrase is not the framework's license text and does not apply to the rest of the fleet.

Where a headline license is narrower than it looks

Three repositories say directly that their headline license does not cover the whole tree or the shipped binary.

ndsrecomp. From THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md:

The MIT grant covers this project's own source. It does not and cannot relicense
the third-party code described below, and it does not make every build artifact
redistributable under MIT terms. In particular, the native runner links vendored
melonDS sources, so the `nds_runner` **executable** is a combined work whose
distribution must comply with GPL-3.0-or-later — see
[melonDS vendored GPU3D (runner)](#melonds-vendored-gpu3d-runner) below. The
recompiler, the generated banks, and all `ndsref`-independent tooling stay
outside that boundary and are distributable under MIT alone.

MarioTennisVirtualBoyRecomp. From LICENSE.md:

This licence covers ONLY the build glue + per-game CMake wiring + this
repo's documentation. It does NOT cover:

  - The Mario's Tennis ROM and any data derived from it (e.g.,
    `generated/marios_tennis_*.c`, screenshots of the running cart).
    Those are © Nintendo. Do not redistribute. You must dump the cart
    you own.

  - The vbrecomp framework (separate repo at github.com/mstan/vbrecomp,
    MIT-licensed under its own `LICENSE` file).

  - The Beetle VB libretro core (cloned separately under `beetle-vb/`,
    GPL-licensed by its respective contributors).

DKC2Recomp. From README.md:

## License

Project-owned source is available under the [MIT License](LICENSE). Vendored
dependencies and submodules retain their own licenses. In particular, the
PSXRecomp-derived screen-color component is PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 with
an MIT/Apache-2.0 color-science lineage; the complete notices are in
`third_party/psxrecomp_color_lut/` and it is not relicensed by the root MIT
license. Nintendo and Rare
own their respective game content and trademarks; no license in this
repository grants rights to that content.

That third_party/psxrecomp_color_lut/ directory carries all three texts: LICENSE-APACHE-2.0.txt, LICENSE-MIT.txt, and LICENSE-POLYFORM-NONCOMMERCIAL-1.0.0.txt.

Third-party licenses the toolchains bundle or link

Five canonical attribution files exist, at psxrecomp, snesrecomp, gbarecomp, ndsrecomp and vbrecomp. Four more carry variant filenames: cdirecomp's THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md, DKC2Recomp's THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, and segagenesisrecomp's THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md. Two repositories use a directory instead, MegaManX6Recomp/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES/ and SuperMarioBrosNESRecomp/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES/. These files are the authority for what a build contains, not the README.

psxrecomp

psxrecomp calls TinyCC aggregation rather than linkage, and says why. TinyCC is not vendored in the repository. tools/compile_overlays.py runs it as a separate program to build overlay shards into a DLL. In the attribution file's words, "Nothing in the runtime links against libtcc, so this is aggregation with a separate program rather than LGPL linkage." The same file notes that no script in the repository fills the end-user overlay toolchain bundle, so if release packaging supplies it, the TinyCC notice has to travel with it there.

snesrecomp

The file also states that the developer-only label is not a waiver.

From THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md:

The `tools/snesref/.gitignore` rules exclude SDL packages and binaries,
`snesref.exe`, and `*_libretro.dll`. A developer-only label does not waive a
dependency's terms if someone distributes it; downstream packages must either
comply with the selected dependency's license or continue to require developers
to supply it separately.

gbarecomp

gbarecomp records that portions of src/runtime/bios_hle.cpp are derived from mGBA and remain subject to MPL-2.0, and that the upstream source is vendored at third_party/mgba/src/gba/bios.c to satisfy the license's source-availability requirement.

ndsrecomp

The largest attribution file in the fleet, at 252 lines.

vbrecomp

segagenesisrecomp

Its compliance notes set out the whole model in four lines.

From THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md:

## Compliance notes

- Native release binaries contain no AGPL code. Release packaging must still
  follow [RELEASING.md](RELEASING.md) and include every applicable notice.
- The shipped binary must not contain a game ROM. Users supply their own ROM;
  `*.bin` is ignored and the runtime loads it separately.
- Generated C compiled into a game executable is a machine translation of ROM
  code. The project's own license cannot grant rights to third-party game code.
- This inventory is informational, not legal advice.

The same file records a dependency that was dropped. No clownmdemu, clown68000 or clownz80 remains in the current source, the recompiler or the native release paths. Those retired oracle components exist only in git history.

Per-game attribution files

DKC2Recomp records why an image ships at all. The North American retail cover is there "only to identify the supported game and region", the art and trademarks stay copyright Nintendo and Rare, and the project claims no ownership.

MegaManX6Recomp states what its one GPL tool means for packaging.

From THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES/README.md:

- Because it is a **separate process**, its GPL terms do **not** extend to this
  project's PolyForm-NC code. If a release ships the error_recalc binary before
  the replacement below lands, that release must also make the error_recalc
  source available per GPLv3 (§6).

Where a project's tooling is not uniformly under one license

Deviations and open questions

The appended PolyForm paragraph. Twenty-two license files in the fleet append this to the end of the stock PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 text, two of them in the shared CPU cores added to the census above.

From LICENSE:

For the avoidance of doubt, the licensor's intent is to restrict uses where
profit is derived from this software. Non-profit personal, educational,
or community use is welcome regardless of organizational context.

For commercial licensing inquiries, contact: https://1379.tech

Three PolyForm files in the fleet do not carry it: OpokXeno/xenogears-recomp, mstan/SonicTheHedgehogRecomp, and mstan/segagenesisrecomp's LICENSE.md.

PolyForm text with no copyright holder. mstan/SonicTheHedgehogRecomp's LICENSE.md and mstan/segagenesisrecomp's LICENSE.md are byte identical and name no licensor. The only copyright string in either file is PolyForm's own worked example. The license file does not say who the licensor is.

Two license files in one repository. mstan/segagenesisrecomp has both LICENSE-recompiler, 100 lines with a named holder and the appended paragraph, and LICENSE.md, 73 lines with neither. A consumer repository's README, Sonic3AndKnucklesRecomp, points at LICENSE.md.

A community repository carrying the framework author's copyright. Alexbeav/syphon-filter-2-recompiled's LICENSE names Copyright (c) 2026 Matthew Stan although the repository owner is Alexbeav. Nothing says whether that is intended. Shy/BoktaiRecomp and OpokXeno/xenogears-recomp both name their own owners, so the fleet is not uniform here.

Do not read a framework's license from a vendored copy. PeriBluGaming/ToyStory2Recomp and Team-Resurgent/MegaManX-X each hold a partial snapshot of a framework, including an older attribution file that says different things. The ToyStory2 copy documents an sljit overlay backend and has no OpenBIOS or TinyCC section at all. OpokXeno/xenogears-recomp carries psxrecomp as a submodule pointing at that owner's own fork. For any framework fact, read mstan/psxrecomp and mstan/snesrecomp directly.

Not established from the files. The license of TechnicallyComputers/retcomm-catalog. And whether release archives really ship the notices their repositories require, because this census read repositories, not built packages.

Source

• mstan/psxrecomp: LICENSE, THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md
• mstan/snesrecomp: LICENSE, THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md
• mstan/gbarecomp: THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md
• mstan/ndsrecomp: THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md, docs/references.md
• mstan/vbrecomp: LICENSE, THIRD_PARTY_ATTRIBUTION.md
• mstan/segagenesisrecomp: LICENSE-recompiler, LICENSE.md, THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md
• mstan/DKC2Recomp: README.md, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md
• mstan/MarioTennisVirtualBoyRecomp: LICENSE.md
• mstan/MegaManX6Recomp: THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES/README.md
• mstan/SonicBlastGGRecomp: README.md
• mstan/StarFoxSNESRecomp: README.md
• The shared components: m68k-recomp-core/LICENSE, z80-recomp-core/LICENSE, recomp-ui/LICENSE