{"id":"GFDL-1.1-only","title":"GNU Free Documentation License v1.1 only","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/GFDL-1.1-only.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models version 1.1 of the GNU Free Documentation License as the only reading, with GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, the record for version 1.3, as the style reference. Reciprocity is whole-work, so cc:ShareAlike is a license-wide duty and dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited. Attribution, notice and source are duties on distribute, modify and derive, and the modification notice and the distinct title are duties on modify and derive. The conditions of sections 3 to 8, which carry the Invariant Sections, the Cover Texts and the Transparent copy, have no deontic term and are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, identifier, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are the same string, GFDL-1.1-only. The SPDX list splits version 1.1 into GFDL-1.1-only and GFDL-1.1-or-later. This record is the only reading; the or-later reading is a record of its own that copies this one.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"One odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dalicc:CreativeWork and dcmitype:Software, the same pair the record for version 1.3 carries. Section 1 applies the license to \"any manual or other work\", and the addendum recommends releasing code examples under a separate free software license, so dcmitype:Software is wider than the text. The review of the version 1.3 record already proposes dcmitype:Text instead; this record keeps the pair so that the three Free Documentation License records can be narrowed in one step.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 2 grants the copying right: \"You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially\", and adds \"you may publicly display copies\". Section 4 grants the right to copy and distribute a Modified Version, and section 8 says \"Translation is considered a kind of modification\". The record therefore permits odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:display, odrl:present, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks, dalicc:ModifiedWorks and cc:CommercialUse. Section 2 also states \"However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies\", so dalicc:chargeDistributionFee is permitted, as on the version 1.3 record after its correction.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 2 names public display and lending, not public performance. odrl:present is carried because 459 of the 460 existing records pair odrl:display with odrl:present and the record for version 1.3 carries both; the text itself supports only the display half.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"Three prohibitions come from the text. Section 4 requires \"that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License\" and section 2 that \"you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License\", so dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited. Section 2 states \"You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute\", which is dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures. Section 9 states \"You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License\", so dalicc:sublicense is prohibited, the way LGPL-2.0-only reads the same sentence in its section 8.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:promote is prohibited, and here the text supports it. Section 4 ends with \"The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.\" On the GNU software records the same prohibition is a library convention without textual support.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"Section 4 requires that a Modified Version be released \"under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document\", which is whole-work reciprocity, so cc:ShareAlike hangs off the odrl:Set itself. cc:Attribution and cc:Notice are duties on distribute, modify and derive, from section 2 (\"provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies\") and section 4 items D and F. cc:SourceCode carries the Transparent copy requirement of section 3 (\"you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete Transparent copy\"), which is the documentation counterpart of source. dalicc:modificationNotice sits on modify and derive from section 4 item I, which requires an item in the History section \"stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version\". dalicc:rename sits on the same two acts from section 4 item A, \"Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document\".","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:duty","description":"The record for version 1.3 hangs a fourth duty on distribute, modify and derive whose odrl:action is dct:source. dct:source is a Dublin Core property and not an action, the validator reports it, and cc:SourceCode already sits beside it, so this record does not repeat it. The review proposes removing those three duty nodes from the version 1.3 record.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Ten clauses are quoted verbatim: the Cover Texts of section 3, the Transparent copy of section 3, the conditions A to N of section 4, the optional invariant designation and the Endorsements and cover text additions of section 4, the combination rule of section 5, the collections of section 6, the aggregation of section 7, the translation of section 8, the termination of section 9 and the future revisions of section 10. The lettered list of section 4 is flattened onto one line with the letters kept, the way LGPL-2.0-only holds the lettered list of its section 6.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"info","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"Version 1.1 has neither a warranty disclaimer nor a limitation of liability, so both fields are absent. The paragraph \"The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document\" first appears in version 1.2, and even there it is a definition of what a Warranty Disclaimer is rather than a disclaimer this license gives.","action":"none"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"The text names no legal system and no end date, so cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual. Section 9 states that any attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute outside the license \"is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License\", which is dalicc:terminatesOnBreach true, and that \"parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance\", which is dalicc:sublicenseSurvival true. There is no cure period.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Four duties of this license have no vocabulary term. The Invariant Sections must be preserved unaltered (section 4 item L, \"Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles\"); proposed term dalicc:invariantSections. The Cover Texts must be carried on the covers of quantity copies (section 3); proposed term dalicc:coverTexts. A machine-readable Transparent copy must accompany Opaque copies over 100 (section 3); proposed term dalicc:transparentCopy, which would be more exact than the cc:SourceCode this record uses. The History section must be kept and added to (section 4 item I); proposed term dalicc:historySection. All four clauses are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer with the axioms of dg_default returned an empty conflict list. cc:ShareAlike is required while dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited and odrl:grantUse is not permitted, which is the combination the check expects.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The nearest sibling is GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, the record for version 1.3. This record differs from it in six deliberate ways, each supported by a sentence quoted in the findings above: the duty dalicc:rename on modify and derive, the prohibition dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures, the prohibition dalicc:sublicense, dalicc:terminatesOnBreach true, dalicc:sublicenseSurvival true and the ten quoted clauses. It also leaves out the three duty nodes whose action is dct:source. The version 1.3 text carries the same sentences for all of these, so the review proposes the same statements for that record.","action":"applied"}],"family":"GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"version","variant_of":null,"notes":"Modelled from the text the SPDX license list publishes for GFDL-1.1-only, which is the text the Free Software Foundation published in March 2000. The quoted clauses are ASCII, the license text contains no long dash, and the only change made in quoting is that line breaks and runs of spaces inside a clause become single spaces."}