Google open-sourced TensorFlow under Apache 2.0 in November 2015

Google’s November 9, 2015 announcement, written by Jeff Dean and Rajat Monga, stated: “We’ve open-sourced TensorFlow as a standalone library and associated tools, tutorials, and examples with the Apache 2.0 license so you’re free to use TensorFlow at your institution (no matter where you work).” The permissive license is what let any company adopt the framework freely.