If you would like to propose a license to add to this page please send an email to the open definition discuss list or to opendefinition@okfn.org
This section of the site lists licenses that are conformant with the principles laid out in the Open Knowledge Definition.
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
Conformant Content Licenses
| License | Domain | By | SA | Comments |
| Creative Commons Attribution | Content | Y | N | |
| Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike | Content | Y | Y | |
| Creative Commons CCZero | Content, Data | N | N | |
| GNU Free Documentation License | Content | Y | Y | Only conformant subject to certain provisos |
| Free Art License | Content | Y | Y | |
| MirOS License | Code, Content | Y | N |
Conformant Data Licenses
| License | Domain | By | SA | Comments |
| Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence (PDDL) | Data | N | N | Dedicate to the Public Domain (all rights waived) |
| Open Data Commons Attribution License | Data | Y | N | Attribution for data(bases) |
| Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) | Data | Y | Y | Attribution-ShareAlike for data(bases) |
| Creative Commons CCZero | Content, Data | N | N | Dedicate to the Public Domain (all rights waived) |
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 | ? | ? | |
| EFF Open Audio License | Content | Y | Y | Deprecated in favor of CC-BY-SA |
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.
