Open Knowledge Licenses

If you have a license to add to this page send an email to the okfn-discuss list or to info@okfn.org

This section of the site lists licenses that are conformant with the principles laid out in the open knowledge definition.

1. Conformant Licenses

The following licenses are conformant with the principles set forth in the open knowledge definition.

  • Domain = Domain of application, i.e. what type of material this license should/can be applied to.
  • BY = requires attribution
  • SA = require share-alike

1.1. Content

License

Domain

By

SA

Comments

Creative Commons Attribution

Content

Y

N

Creative Commons Share-Alike

Content

Y

Y

GNU Free Documentation License

Content

Y

Y

Only conformant subject to certain provisos

Creative Commons CCZero

Content, Data

N

N

UK PSI (Public Sector Information) Click-Use Licence

Content, Data

Y

N

Free Art License

Content

Y

Y

MirOS License

Code, Content

Y

N

1.2. Data

License

Domain

By

SA

Comments

Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence (ODC PDDL)

Data

N

N

Dedicated to Public Domain (Waive Everything)

Creative Commons CCZero

Content, Data

N

N

Open Data Commons Open Database License

Data

Y

Y

MIT DB

Data

N

N

MIT Open Source license crudely ported to data

UK PSI (Public Sector Information) Click-Use Licence

Content, Data

Y

N

For Use by UK Government

1.3. Conformant but Little Used, Discontinued or Deprecated Licenses

License

Domain

By

SA

Comments

Talis Community License

Data

?

?

Deprecated in favour of ODC licenses

Against DRM

Content

Y

Y

Design Science License

Data

?

?

2. Non-Conformant Licenses

The linked page lists some non-conformant licenses -- usually those that though supporting some of the definition's principles do not support all of them.

2.1. Other Licenses which may be conformant

These licenses have not been reviewed but may be conformant.

License

Domain

By

SA

Comments

TQM³

Data

?

?

For their spam blacklists

MaxMind WorldCities Database

Data

Y

N

For their directory of cities

2.2. Modifying Creative Commons for Data

The Open Creative Commons licenses listed above are orientee towards copyrightable 'content'. Nevertheless they be modded in order to apply to data as well. For example, you could add this statement at the point that you reference the CC license:

  • "The license granted in relation to the 'Work' should be read broadly to relate not only to copyright but also to all other IP rights present in this dataset including, for example, any database rights."

The Dutch CC team, who included DB rights in their license, produced a document detailing their changes. They have adapted the original license for the Dutch legal system - in which neighbouring rights and database rights needed to be considered as well as copyright.