Licence & ownership
Source-available now, Apache-2.0 on a fixed date
CDP is released under a Business Source Licence (BSL 1.1). You can read the whole repository, fork it and evaluate it freely. Running it in production needs a licensed instance. Four years after each release, that release becomes Apache-2.0 automatically.
The licence parameters, in plain terms
BSL 1.1 is a standard, widely used licence. These are the four parameters we set.
VUIT Data Labs (Longacres Consulting Ltd)
CDP — the Canonical Data Platform
All non-production use is free: evaluation, development, testing, training and internal proof-of-concept.
Four years after each release; change licence is Apache-2.0.
Why this licence, and not pure open source
A Trust needs certainty of ownership and continuity. We need CDP to be sustainably maintained. BSL gives both.
Source available, in full
The complete repository — generated DDL, dbt models, tests, access policy and infrastructure — is readable by your team, your IG function and your auditors. Nothing about how CDP works is hidden behind a binary or a support contract.
Free to evaluate, develop and test
The Additional Use Grant permits any non-production use at no cost: evaluation, development, testing, training and internal proof-of-concept work. You only need a paid licence when CDP holds live data in a production service.
Becomes Apache-2.0 after four years
Every release carries a Change Date four years from publication. On that date the release converts automatically and irrevocably to Apache-2.0. The open outcome is guaranteed in the licence text itself, not promised in a blog post.
Your data, your copy, your tenancy
The licence covers the repository software, not your data. CDP runs in your own cloud or data centre, the canonical copy of your data never leaves your estate, and your extensions are yours.
No take-backs on a licensed instance
A production licence is perpetual for the versions it covers. If we stopped maintaining CDP tomorrow, your Trust keeps a running instance, the source, and the right to modify it — and the Change Date still converts it to Apache-2.0.
Compatible with the national FDP standards
CDP is built on the published NHS Canonical Data Model and FHIR UK Core — the same interoperability standards used by the national FDP programme — so it can receive, hold and serve data in a shape that aligns with the national instance by design.
Holds your existing FDP data
CDP is a repository, not a competing platform. If your Trust already has data in an existing FDP instance, CDP can receive and hold that data in its canonical form — in your own tenancy, under your own controls.
The schema is generated from the same published NHS Canonical Data Model, so the tables, keys and value sets map across. Migration becomes a data-load and reconciliation problem, not a model-rebuild problem.
That matters for exit planning: a Trust can keep a canonical copy of its own data even while continuing to use another platform for analytics or national reporting.
Compatible with the national FDP by design
CDP is built on the published NHS Canonical Data Model and FHIR UK Core — the same interoperability standards that underpin the national Federated Data Platform programme.
That means the data shape, the API surface and the value sets are aligned by design. A Trust can run CDP alongside the national FDP instance, hold its own canonical copy, and expose the same FHIR UK Core read interfaces to conformant clients.
We do not claim any formal integration or endorsement by NHS England. What we claim is architectural alignment: the standards are the same, so the compatibility is structural rather than contractual.
What the licence does and does not do
You can
You need a licence to
You must
We cannot
What a production licence covers
The instance
Model currency
Support and assurance
Evaluation access is separate from the licence terms
The evaluation download is gated so we can support named evaluators properly. The gate is a release process, not an extra licence restriction. Once you have the code, it is governed by the Business Source Licence in exactly the same way as any other copy — free for non-production use, licensed for production, Apache-2.0 in four years.
Next step
Own your canonical copy
Read the licence, open the sandbox, or request access to evaluate CDP against your own estate.