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2026

Open Software License 3.0

Also known as OSL v. 3.0, OSL-3.0, Open Software License v. 3.0 (OSL-3.0), The Open Software License 3.0, The Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0).

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OSL-3.0

Permissions

  • Charge distribution fee from the text Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Charge license fee from the text Charging a fee for granting someone a license to the work.
  • Commercial use from the text Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.
  • Patent grant from the text Granting a license under the patent claims that a contributor holds and that the contribution necessarily infringes.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

  • Change license from the text Not permitted: Change license. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.
  • Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

License-wide duties

  • Share alike from the text Adaptations have to be licensed under the same license or one the license names as compatible.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

No default rule of that graph reaches this license: it speaks about every act the rules are about.

Further terms

These are the things the license says about itself beyond the acts it permits, forbids and requires: when it ends, how long there is to put a breach right, which law governs it, and so on. A term that comes from the DALICC vocabulary links to its definition.

Patent license ends if you sue
Yes. Not a ban on suing: a patent claim over the work ends the patent license, or the whole license, as the text provides.

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights. Except as expressly stated in the immediately preceding sentence, the Original Work is provided under this License on an "AS IS" BASIS and WITHOUT WARRANTY, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY OF THE ORIGINAL WORK IS WITH YOU. This DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY constitutes an essential part of this License. No license to the Original Work is granted by this License except under this disclaimer.

Limitation of liability

Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, shall the Licensor be liable to anyone for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or the use of the Original Work including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses. This limitation of liability shall not apply to the extent applicable law prohibits such limitation.

Info

Target asset types
Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
http://opensource.org/licenses/OSL-3.0
Legal code
http://opensource.org/licenses/OSL-3.0
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
Lawrence Rosen
Attribution name
Lawrence Rosen
SPDX identifier
OSL-3.0 on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
OSL-3.0

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OSL-3.0",
  "license-title": "Open Software License 3.0",
  "spdx-id": "OSL-3.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OSL-3.0> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OSL-3.0"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OSL-3.0" rel="license">Open Software License 3.0</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge DALICC badge for Open Software License 3.0

Markdown 

[![License: Open Software License 3.0](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OSL-3.0/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OSL-3.0)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OSL-3.0"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OSL-3.0/badge.svg" alt="License: Open Software License 3.0"></a>

Review

Status
Reviewed against the license text
Last checked
2026-09-15
Reviewer
Giray Havur
Verdict
corrected during the review
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
8 recorded, 5 applied to the record, 1 proposed

The Open Software License is strong copyleft: clause 1(c) requires every copy the licensee distributes to be licensed under this same license, and clause 5 treats network use as distribution. The record had it backwards, modelling share-alike as an optional permission and prohibiting the sublicensing the license expressly grants. Both were corrected, the SPDX id was added, dct:source was repointed at the license itself, and the liability clause was recorded.

8 findings

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:permission applied

    Clause 1(c) grants the right "to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Open Software License". That is a duty, not a permission. Removed the cc:ShareAlike permission and added a license-wide cc:ShareAlike duty, the form the GNU and Mozilla records use.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:prohibition applied

    Clause 1 grants a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license". The record prohibited odrl:grantUse, which the text contradicts. Removed the prohibition. The matching permission was deliberately not added: the dependency graph axiom "cc:ShareAlike dalicc:contradicts odrl:grantUse" would then report a direct conflict, and this license proves the axiom is too strong, since a sublicense under the same terms is exactly what clause 1(c) requires.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission proposed

    The permission that belongs with the finding above. It needs the dependency-graph decision first.

  • minor Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    Added OSL-3.0 and repointed dct:source, which named rosenlaw.com/OSL3.0-explained.htm, an explanatory commentary, rather than the license text.

  • minor Rubric 6 dalicc:LiabilityLimitation applied

    Clause 8 was not recorded. Added, quoted. dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer already held clause 7 correctly.

  • gap Rubric 8 vocabulary none

    Clause 5, External Deployment, states: "You must treat any External Deployment by You of the Original Work or a Derivative Work as a distribution under section 1(c)", and External Deployment includes making the work "available as an application intended for use over a network". This is the same trigger as in the Affero GPL. Clause 2 grants patents, clause 10 terminates on patent action, clause 9 requires a reasonable effort to obtain the recipient's assent. Proposed: dalicc:networkUseTrigger, dalicc:patentGrant, dalicc:patentRetaliationTermination, dalicc:recipientAssent.

  • info Rubric 10 family none

    AFL-3.0 is the same document with clause 1(c) relaxed. After the review the two records differ exactly there: this one requires share-alike, that one permits dalicc:ChangeLicense.

  • major Rubric 10 record applied

    Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The content review of 2026-09-15 added 1 clause text, 1 identification detail and 1 license-wide duty, removed 1 permission and 1 prohibition, changed 1 identification detail and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15 and named the license the record itself is published under.

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    14 changes

    • added dalicc:LiabilityLimitation "Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, shall the Licensor be liable to anyone for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or the use of the Original Work including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses. This limitation of liability shall not apply to the extent applicable law prohibits such limitation."

      Review finding Clause 8 was not recorded. Added, quoted. dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer already held clause 7 correctly.

    • added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • changed dct:source osl:OSL-3.0

      was dct:source <http://rosenlaw.com/OSL3.0-explained.htm>

      Review finding Added OSL-3.0 and repointed dct:source, which named rosenlaw.com/OSL3.0-explained.htm, an explanatory commentary, rather than the license text.

    • added duty cc:ShareAlike

      Review finding Clause 1(c) grants the right "to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Open Software License". That is a duty, not a permission. Removed the cc:ShareAlike permission and added a license-wide cc:ShareAlike duty, the form the GNU and Mozilla records use.

    • removed permission cc:ShareAlike with duties [cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode]

      Review finding Clause 1(c) grants the right "to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Open Software License". That is a duty, not a permission. Removed the cc:ShareAlike permission and added a license-wide cc:ShareAlike duty, the form the GNU and Mozilla records use.

    • removed prohibition odrl:grantUse

      Review finding Clause 1 grants a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license". The record prohibited odrl:grantUse, which the text contradicts. Removed the prohibition. The matching permission was deliberately not added: the dependency graph axiom "cc:ShareAlike dalicc:contradicts odrl:grantUse" would then report a direct conflict, and this license proves the axiom is too strong, since a sublicense under the same terms is exactly what clause 1(c) requires.

    • added spdx:licenseId "OSL-3.0"

      Review finding Added OSL-3.0 and repointed dct:source, which named rosenlaw.com/OSL3.0-explained.htm, an explanatory commentary, rather than the license text.

    • removed permission dalicc:noWarrantyNotice

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

    • added permission dalicc:patentGrant

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

    • added prohibition dalicc:ChangeLicense

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

    • removed prohibition dalicc:addStatement

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

    • added prohibition dalicc:patentRetaliationTermination

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 4: the record permitted dalicc:noWarrantyNotice and prohibited dalicc:addStatement without support, made no patent statement although section 2 grants one and section 10 ends it on patent litigation, and said nothing about relicensing although clause 1(c) requires every copy to be 'licensed under this License', which the four new Open Software License records model as a dalicc:ChangeLicense prohibition.

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

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Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.