License & Usage Terms
M3 Framework is fully open source. Use it freely — including commercially.
100% Open Source
As of 2026, the M3 Framework is released under a permissive dual open-source license. You can use, modify, redistribute, and build commercial offerings on top of it — without asking permission and without paying anyone.
- The Standard (whitepaper, methodology, diagrams, mappings) — licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- Code & data artifacts (CSV annexes, templates, scripts, JSON/YAML) — licensed under Apache License 2.0.
Full legal text: LICENSE on GitHub.
What you can do
- Use internally — implement M3 inside any organization, of any size, for any purpose, at no cost.
- Sell consulting & audits — offer paid consulting, advisory, audit, training, and implementation services based on M3. Keep 100% of the revenue.
- Build products on top of it — ship software, SaaS, courses, books, or any other commercial offering that implements, references, or embeds the M3 Framework.
- Modify, translate, fork — create derivative works, translations, adaptations, even under a different name or brand.
- Issue your own attestations — reference M3 in your own compliance statements, methodology, or framework.
The only thing we ask
Attribution. Give appropriate credit to the M3 Framework by Julius Gromyko (m3framework.org), link to the license, and indicate if you made changes. That's it.
A simple line like "Based on the M3 Framework (m3framework.org), CC BY 4.0" is more than enough.
Trademarks
The names "M3 Framework", "Mount-Monitor-Manage", and the associated logos remain trademarks of Julius Gromyko. You can freely say "Compatible with the M3 Framework", "Based on the M3 Framework", or "Implements the M3 Framework".
Please don't claim to be an "Official M3 Framework partner" or "M3 Certified" without a separate written agreement — that's the only piece reserved for formal partnerships.
Contact
Questions, partnership opportunities, or anything else:
Created and maintained by Iulii Gromyko
(julius@gromy.co).
Released to the community as open source so compliance becomes accessible for every SME.