The terms for using Lisa OS.
Lisa OS is free software you run on your own hardware. There is no account, no subscription and no service to sign up for — which makes this shorter than most.
Last updated 30 July 2026
The licence governs the software
Lisa OS is distributed under the GPL-2.0. That licence, not this page, is what grants you the right to use, study, modify and redistribute it. Where the two ever appear to disagree, the licence wins. The full text ships with the source at the repository.
Alpha software, and we mean it
Lisa OS is under active development and is not finished. It writes to disks, replaces bootloaders and updates itself between partitions. Install it on hardware you can afford to reinstall, and keep backups of anything you care about. Do not run it in production.
No warranty
The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the authors and contributors are not liable for any claim, damages or other liability arising from the software or its use — including lost data. Sections 11 and 12 of the GPL-2.0 say this in the operative language.
What you are responsible for
- The accounts you connect, and complying with the terms of those providers — Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and any other.
- The content you process, and your right to process it.
- Reviewing what the assistant proposes before you let it act. The system is built to ask; that only helps if you read the question.
- Using it lawfully.
Third-party services
Cloud models and mail providers are not ours. When you sign in to one, your relationship is with that provider under their terms, and their handling of your data is theirs to describe. Lisa OS marks these calls and records them so you can see exactly when it happens — see Privacy.
Trade marks
The GPL covers the code, not the name. "Lisa OS" and the logo are ours; please do not use them in a way that suggests we endorse or produced something we did not. Fair descriptive use — saying your work is based on Lisa OS — is fine and welcome.
Contributions
Contributions are accepted under the same GPL-2.0 as the rest of the project. There is no separate contributor licence agreement.
Changes
These terms may change; the date above moves when they do, and the history is public in the repository.