Dual Ledger: Closed Core · Open Surface
MeshInfer.AI operates a Dual Ledger model. The Closed Core is the DOSFI operating system — proprietary, sovereign, and non-open-source. The Open Surface is the developer-facing SDKs, node clients, tools, and reference implementations — MIT-licensed, inspectable, and community-driven. The boundary between them is deliberate, stable, and non-negotiable.
The DOSFI core — proprietary, closed source
DOSFI (Distributed OS for Federated Inference) is the operating system layer that makes the mesh work. It is not a library, a framework, or a thin wrapper around open models. It is purpose-built infrastructure that took years to design and is not replicable by assembling open-source components.
The following components are all-rights-reserved proprietary software. They are not open source, implemented as proprietary runtime components, and not licensed for use outside of the MeshInfer.AI platform:
Open source components
Everything that touches the developer's codebase directly — SDKs, hooks, bindings — is MIT-licensed and publicly auditable. You can read it, fork it, and contribute to it. What you cannot do is use it to replicate the DOSFI layer.
The architectural boundary
Applications interact with DOSFI Core exclusively through a stable, documented ABI. Developers can build, test, and deploy mesh-native applications without depending on internal runtime implementations. The SDK calls into the DOSFI layer via a versioned interface — you get routing, privacy enforcement, mesh access, and thermal safety as capabilities, not as code you must maintain. This means:
- You can audit everything in the open-source SDK — no hidden network calls, no undocumented data collection.
- The DOSFI layer can be improved, optimised, and upgraded without breaking your integration.
- The protocol spec is documented enough for interoperability testing but not published in full.
Why the Closed Core is closed
The proprietary value resides in the scheduling, routing, readiness, verification, and runtime algorithms that coordinate distributed execution. Those components are the result of our design decisions and are exposed through a stable ABI so developers can build against them without requiring access to the implementation.
| Technical differentiation | The scheduling, routing, readiness, and verification algorithms are the differentiated technology. They are the product — not a layer that could be reproduced by assembling open-source components. |
| Defensibility | Open-sourcing the router and scheduler would allow anyone to spin up a competing mesh in weeks. The complexity is the moat. |
| Safety | A public routing algorithm is an attack surface. Knowing how nodes are selected, how verification sampling works, and how reputations are scored enables adversarial gaming and weaponization of the mesh. |
| Device integrity | The Readiness Engine and Power/Thermal Model protect participant hardware from silent exploitation. Publishing their thresholds would allow adversaries to craft workloads that bypass safety gates and degrade devices. |
| Degradation protection | A forked or fragmented DOSFI core would diverge in routing quality, verification rigor, and privacy enforcement. Keeping it closed prevents ecosystem degradation from incompatible or negligent reimplementations. |
| Quality | Closed internals allow us to ship breaking internal changes without coordinating with a community. We move faster and you get a more reliable platform. |
| Monetisation | The DOSFI layer is what you pay for. The SDK is free because it creates no value without the Coordinator and the mesh behind it. |
| Category ownership | DOSFI is the category. Keeping it closed means we define the standard — we don't fragment into competing implementations. |
Why the Open Surface is open
| Inspectability | Every line of code that touches the developer's codebase is auditable. No hidden network calls, no undocumented data collection, no opaque telemetry. You can read it, fork it, and verify it. |
| Trust | Open source is the only credible claim of "we don't exfiltrate your data." A closed client making privacy promises is an article of faith; an open client making them is a verifiable fact. |
| Adoption | MIT licensing removes every barrier to entry. Developers can prototype, evaluate, and ship without legal review. The path from "curious" to "production" has zero licensing friction. |
| Hardware transparency | The capability probe, runtime selection, and thermal/battery gates are all in the open client. Developers and users can verify exactly what hardware signals are read, how they are used, and what is never collected. |
| Ecosystem growth | Reference nodes, example mesh-native apps, and the ABI spec are open so the community can learn, extend, and build new runtimes and integrations. The surface grows; the core stays sovereign. |