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2026

W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)

Also known as W3C, W3C Software Notice and License, W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31).

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
not required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
Compare with… Add to the compatibility check Download JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML Text

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/W3C

Permissions

  • Change license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.

    Duties

    • Use a compliant license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Choosing a replacement license that stays compliant with the terms of the original license.
  • 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.
  • 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.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • 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.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • 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.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • 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

  • Charge distribution fee from the text Not permitted: Charge distribution fee. Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. The text says: "The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific, written prior permission." Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

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.

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS," AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.

Limitation of liability

COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION.

Additional clauses

Permission to copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the software and documentation or portions thereof, including modifications: The full text of this NOTICE in a location viewable to users of the redistributed or derivative work. Any pre-existing intellectual property disclaimers, notices, or terms and conditions. If none exist, the W3C Software Short Notice should be included (hypertext is preferred, text is permitted) within the body of any redistributed or derivative code. Notice of any changes or modifications to the files, including the date changes were made. (We recommend you provide URIs to the location from which the code is derived.) The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in this software and any associated documentation will at all times remain with copyright holders.

Info

Target asset types
Creative work (i.e. text, picture, sound, movie), Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://spdx.org/licenses/W3C.html
Legal code
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231.html
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
W3C
Attribution name
W3C
SPDX identifier
W3C on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
W3C

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/W3C",
  "license-title": "W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)",
  "spdx-id": "W3C",
  "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/W3C> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/W3C"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/W3C" rel="license">W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)</a>.</p>

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

Badge DALICC badge for W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)

Markdown 

[![License: W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/W3C/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/W3C)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/W3C"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/W3C/badge.svg" alt="License: W3C Software Notice and License (2002-12-31)"></a>

Review

Written from the license text by
Giray Havur
Written on
2026-09-15
Second review
not yet done
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
9 recorded, 8 applied to the record, 0 proposed

Models the 2002 W3C Software Notice and License, which is a different text from the 2015 W3C Software and Document Notice and License the library already holds as W3cSoftwareAndDocumentNoticeAndLicense. The existing record was not touched. Nothing here is legal advice.

9 findings

  • minor Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

    The text licenses "this work (and included software, documentation such as READMEs, or other related items)", so the asset collection carries dalicc:CreativeWork next to dcmitype:Software. The 2015 record also carries dcmitype:Dataset, which the 2002 wording does not support.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    The grant reads "Permission to copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the software and documentation or portions thereof, including modifications". Commercial use is permitted because the grant is for any purpose.

  • major Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    The text states "The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific, written prior permission", so dalicc:promote is a prohibition. "without fee or royalty" gives the dalicc:chargeDistributionFee prohibition that the 2015 record also carries, and dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited because the notice must travel unchanged. (Corrected on 2026-09-15 by the verification of this review group: see the rubric 3 finding on relicensing below.)

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    The grant lists three things that must be included on all copies: "The full text of this NOTICE in a location viewable to users of the redistributed or derivative work"; any pre-existing intellectual property disclaimers, notices or terms; and "Notice of any changes or modifications to the files, including the date changes were made". The first two are cc:Notice and cc:Attribution on odrl:distribute, odrl:modify and odrl:derive; the third is dalicc:modificationNotice on odrl:modify and odrl:derive.

  • minor Rubric 6 dalicc:additionalClauses applied

    The grant paragraph with its three bullet requirements and the trademark and title paragraph are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses, including the sentence "Title to copyright in this software and any associated documentation will at all times remain with copyright holders". The two disclaimer paragraphs are quoted word for word in their own predicates.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction applied

    The text names no legal system and sets no term, so cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check of app.services.composer with the dependency graph dg_default returned an empty conflict list.

  • major Rubric 10 record applied

    Follows licensedata/licenses/W3cSoftwareAndDocumentNoticeAndLicense.ttl, which holds the 2015 text under the SPDX identifier W3C-20150513. The 2002 notice removes the ambiguous grant of "use" that earlier versions had and does not cover documents as a separate category, which is why this record leaves out dcmitype:Dataset. dalicc:variantKind is "edition", matching the existing record.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Library convention 15: a licence that asks for no reciprocity and no source code asks only that the notice travels with the copy, which is a duty on the acts it governs and not a bar on putting the copy under other terms. dalicc:ChangeLicense is therefore a permission here, and the prohibition the earlier reading wrote is removed. The text reads: "Permission to copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the software and documentation or portions thereof, including modifications: The full text of this NOTICE in a location viewable to users of the redistributed or derivative work." The permission carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, as Apache-2.0 does, because the notice has to survive the relicensing.

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 changes since version 1 recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

    3 changes

    • changed permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      was permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      Manual edit The statement is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing: the text does not state it in as many words. Its duty dalicc:compliantLicense is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing.

    • changed prohibition dalicc:promote

      was prohibition dalicc:promote

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific, written prior permission."

    • 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

    Created from the license text on 2026-09-15 (Python, PHP, Unicode and W3C).

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

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.