{"id":"GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only","title":"GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - no invariants","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the identifier SPDX uses for a document released under version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation License, with no Invariant Sections, and under that version only. The legal text is the same document that the GnuFreeDocumentationLicense record models, so the deontic model is that record statement for statement. Section 1 says that \"The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections\", and whether a particular document does is stated in its own licence notice, not in the licence text, so no statement of the record can differ on it.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, record id, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are all GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only. SPDX splits version 1.3 into six identifiers, by whether the document has Invariant Sections and by whether a later version may be used; the record for the plain GFDL-1.3-only identifier is GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, which carries the older descriptive file name.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:variantOf","description":"The record copies GnuFreeDocumentationLicense statement for statement. What differs: the identifier, the SPDX identifier, dct:title, dct:alternative, the pair dalicc:variantKind \"version-option\" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, and dalicc:orLaterVersionOption, which the base record does not carry at all. The record GFDL-1.3-invariants-only carries the same model: the two identifiers share one text, and the SPDX text files for them are the same bytes.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:orLaterVersionOption","description":"dalicc:orLaterVersionOption is false. This identifier names version 1.3 and no later one, which is what the \"-only\" in it says, and section 10 gives the option only where the document asks for it: \"If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License \"or any later version\" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.\" cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual; section 1 grants \"a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration\".","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 2: \"You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially\", \"you may accept compensation in exchange for copies\" and \"You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.\" Section 4 permits a Modified Version. The ten permissions of the base record follow from those sentences: odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:display, odrl:present, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks, dalicc:ModifiedWorks, cc:CommercialUse and dalicc:chargeDistributionFee.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:ShareAlike is a duty of the licence itself, from section 4: you must release the Modified Version \"under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document\". Attribution, notice and source-code duties hang on distribute, modify and derive, and dalicc:modificationNotice on modify and derive, from the conditions of section 4. A document under this identifier has no Invariant Sections to preserve, but the record cannot say so with any term the vocabulary has; see the gap finding.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:duty","description":"Three duty nodes, on distribute, modify and derive, carry \"odrl:action dct:source\", which is a Dublin Core property and not an action, so the dependency graph cannot see the duty. The nodes come from the base record, whose review already proposes replacing them; each of the three permissions carries cc:SourceCode beside them. The three GFDL 1.3 records should be corrected in one step, so nothing was changed here.","action":"proposed","change":"# in the distribute, modify and derive permissions of all three GFDL 1.3 records\n# odrl:action dct:source  ->  remove the duty node, cc:SourceCode is already there\n"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited, which is the whole-work copyleft shape and follows section 4, and dalicc:promote is prohibited although the text has no trademark clause. Both come from the base record. Section 2 states a prohibition none of the three records carries: \"You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.\" dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures covers it exactly and is proposed for the family together.","action":"proposed","change":"odrl:prohibition [ a odrl:Prohibition ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures ] ;\n"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"The record carries one clause literal, the section 1 sentence about Warranty Disclaimers included by reference, and no dalicc:LiabilityLimitation. That is the state of the base record, and its review already says that the licence has no warranty clause of its own. Nothing was added here, because the text is the same document.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:target","description":"The asset collection carries dalicc:CreativeWork and dcmitype:Software, as in the base record. Section 1 defines the Document as \"any manual or other work, in any medium\", so dcmitype:Text would fit better than dcmitype:Software; the review of the base record already proposes that change, and it belongs to all three records at once.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer, run with licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, reports 0 conflicts for this record.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"vocabulary","description":"Nothing in the vocabulary says that a document carries no Invariant Sections, which is the only thing this identifier adds to GFDL-1.3-only. It matters to a reader, because a document with no Invariant Sections and no Cover Texts can be modified without carrying an unalterable section forward, and section 11 lets such a document be relicensed to CC BY-SA on a massive multiauthor collaboration site. Proposed terms: dalicc:invariantSectionsOption as an annotation naming which of the SPDX identifiers the record stands for, and dalicc:invariantSections, dalicc:coverTexts and dalicc:transparentCopy as duty actions for the conditions of sections 3 and 4 that no term reaches.","action":"none"}],"family":"GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"version-option","variant_of":"GnuFreeDocumentationLicense","notes":"This is the identifier a manual uses when its licence notice says \"with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts\", which is the notice the Free Software Foundation recommends in the appendix of the licence."}