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Open Source Licensing Statement on TiinyOS and Cherry Studio Cherry Studio Team · November 4, 2026 This statement sets out our findings and position. The appendix includes the samples, code comparisons, and downloadable verification materials. We recently received an email asking about the relationship between Tiiny AI’s desktop application, TiinyOS, and Cherry Studio. The sender found several Cherry Studio identifiers in the installers. They also found a license notice that closely resembled an earlier version of ours, with changes to the product name and commercial contact email address. The sender’s main questions were whether Tiiny AI had obtained a commercial license for Cherry Studio, whether the Cherry Studio team had authorized the license notice included in the installers, and where to find the Corresponding Source and license notices if the code was being used under the AGPL. The passage above is an English translation of our Chinese summary of the email. We have removed the sender’s name, email address, and other identifying information. The sender made clear that they did not know whether the two parties had a commercial licensing arrangement and wanted to check with us first. We believe feedback this specific and carefully framed deserves serious attention. It concerns what users understand about where the software comes from, the work of community contributors, and how an open source license should be put into practice. We therefore reviewed the relevant installers, Cherry Studio’s official source code, and its licensing history. We also verified key findings across multiple analyses. Below, we explain what we confirmed, what information is still missing, and how we hope the matter can be resolved. 1. Our findings Our review found specific, traceable matches between TiinyOS and Cherry Studio in application logic, interface definitions, project assets, and license text. Taken together, the evidence gives us sufficient grounds to conclude that the TiinyOS versions we examined made substantive use of Cherry Studio code and assets. We examined nine installers in total, covering TiinyOS versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3 on Windows x64, Windows ARM64, and macOS ARM64. Our finding is based on static extraction and comparison of the original files. The appendix lists the samples, hashes, file paths, and code locations. In the installed files, official help and developer documentation, and public repository locations we examined, we have yet to find the complete Corresponding Source for these versions of TiinyOS or materials that clearly explain its use of Cherry Studio and the applicable licensing arrangement. We therefore ask Tiiny AI whether all relevant open source license obligations have been fulfilled. The available samples directly establish the matches in the code and files. Determining whether the source is available through other channels requires information from Tiiny AI. We maintain that distinction throughout this statement. 2. What the evidence shows We treated the email as a lead and began with the download links listed in Tiiny’s official help documentation. We verified the sizes and SHA-256 hashes of all nine original installers, extracted them again, and checked the application packages and license files. We then compared specific code against pinned revisions of Cherry Studio’s official repository. This allows readers to repeat the checks against the same files. First, the matches extend to specific application logic. Alongside identifiers such as CherryStudio/1.0 and cherryin, we compared backup configuration checks, compatibility with Obsidian’s Linux configuration paths, and legacy database migrations. The implementations retain the same order of field comparisons and candidate paths, as well as matching migration logs and error-handling branches. For example, the Obsidian path logic accounts for differences in capitalization, XDG directories, Snap’s current and common directories, and Flatpak directories. It searches for the configuration file in the same order. The database migration retains legacy logic for moving messages from the old structure to message_blocks. These specific choices reflect how the project evolved and provide stronger evidence of provenance than a product name on its own. Second, the findings corroborate each other across several layers. Project identifiers appear in main-process, preload, and renderer files. Several sets of IPC definitions have matching member names and values, and a group of files is byte-for-byte identical. Compared with Cherry Studio v1.6.7, 177 upstream paths match 159 distinct TiinyOS files by content. We counted images, fonts, and scripts separately. Some icons come from third parties, and the file counts measure matches within the comparison rather than the share of the entire application that was copied. The match between the license files is particularly clear. The license HTML is identical across all nine TiinyOS samples. Applying three sets of replacements to the original Cherry Studio file, in order, reproduces the TiinyOS file byte for byte. The replacements cover the product name, the commercial contact email address, and one Chinese contact phrase. All other line breaks, indentation, and content are identical, including two instances of “Cherry Studio” split across lines. Our concern is that the notice describes the boundary between the upstream open source and commercial licenses, yet retains the original structure and conditions while changing the commercial contact address to [email protected]. This can make it hard for readers to tell which rights come from Cherry Studio’s open source license and which rights Tiiny can grant on its own. We believe that relationship should be made clear. Together, these findings support Cherry Studio as a source of the code, assets, and license text examined here. Who made the changes, why they made them, and the exact commit from which TiinyOS may have forked remain unverified. 3. Our position on AGPL compliance We have not granted Tiiny AI a commercial license for Cherry Studio. Cherry Studio’s open source license permits use, modification, and distribution under its terms, including use without a separate commercial license. Cherry Studio Community Edition is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). We welcome software based on Cherry Studio, including commercial products, when it provides the Corresponding Source, retains the required notices, and fulfills the other applicable AGPL obligations. Cherry Studio has also benefited from other open source projects. Reusing existing work can give a team more time to tackle new problems. When a community shares its code, it gives others the opportunity to improve it, combine it with other work, and even build a business on it. Honoring the license is a practical way to respect that openness. Beyond the visible interface and features, software embodies a great deal of less visible work. Contributors fix edge cases, support different operating systems, maintain compatibility with older data, and refine error handling. When they choose to share those efforts under an open source license, recipients should pass on the rights that license grants to downstream users. Clear attribution helps users understand which projects make up the software they use. Access to the Corresponding Source lets them inspect the implementation, maintain their own versions, or keep using the software if the product is discontinued. These are practical benefits that open source licensing is meant to preserve. We are asking for compliance with the license. A commercial license purchase is outside the scope of this public request. 4. Cherry Studio’s own licensing history The license HTML examined in this review refers to earlier conditions covering “individuals and organizations with 10 or fewer people.” We owe readers the history behind that wording. The threshold came from the older notice and is separate from the terms of the AGPL itself. In the pinned Cherry Studio repository snapshot we reviewed, the root LICENSE file already contained the full standard AGPL-3.0 text. At the same time, resources/cherry-studio/license.html still contained the earlier notice that distinguished users by organization size. Our own repository contains inconsistent licensing notices, and we need to review and clarify them. The appendix includes both files. The root LICENSE identifies the license underlying this public request. The older HTML establishes the source of the text in the TiinyOS file and documents the state of our own repository. The terms that apply to a particular historical release depend on the code version used and the licensing terms in place at the time. Our request concerns compliance with the applicable AGPL requirements and clarification of the notices that could confuse readers. The earlier headcount threshold is outside the scope of this request. 5. How we hope this can be resolved Ideally, the Tiiny team can shed some light on these questions so that people following the matter can understand what happened. It is also fine if they choose to leave it there. We have set out the facts we were able to verify and our position, and we are open to hearing their perspective. As fellow founders, we know how much work it takes to turn an idea into a product and put it in users’ hands. We value the care people put into building products and the code, experience, and trust that open source communities share. We hope those hard-earned contributions are treated with care. Building a company is hard. We hope everyone can keep making good products and carry forward the generosity that makes open source possible. Thank you to the sender for providing specific, carefully documented leads and to the community members who took the time to verify the facts. We thank Grok Bot, Dots, Codex, and Yinsen’s assistant Kuaikuai for helping analyze and cross-check the