{"id":"Unicode-DFS-2016","title":"Unicode License Agreement - Data Files and Software (2016)","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"Models the 2016 Unicode licence agreement for data files and software, which Unicode License v3 replaced in 2024. The grant is the same MIT style grant as in v3; what this text adds is the list of directories whose contents count as Data Files and as Software. Nothing here is legal advice.","findings":[{"rubric":2,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:target","description":"The agreement defines Data Files by the directories they live in and Software as \"any source code published in the Unicode Standard or under the directories\" it lists, so the asset collection carries dcmitype:Dataset next to dcmitype:Software.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"The grant reads \"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Unicode data files and any associated documentation ... to deal in the Data Files or Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies ... and to permit persons to whom the Data Files or Software are furnished to do so\", which is the same grant as Unicode-3.0 and the same permission set.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"The closing sentence bars use of a copyright holder's name \"in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in these Data Files or Software\", modelled as a dalicc:promote prohibition.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:duty","description":"The condition is the same two-limbed notice requirement as in Unicode-3.0, so cc:Attribution and cc:Notice hang off odrl:distribute, odrl:modify and odrl:derive.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"major","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The scope paragraphs, which are the substantive difference from the 2023 text, are quoted in full, together with the acceptance notice and the advertising sentence. The 2016 text runs the warranty and liability sentences into one paragraph; this record splits them at the sentence boundary into dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer and dalicc:LiabilityLimitation.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"The text names no legal system and sets no term, so cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer with the dependency graph dg_default returned an empty conflict list.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"major","field":"record","description":"Modelled together with Unicode-3.0 and deliberately given the same deontic model, so that a consumer who moves from the 2016 agreement to v3 sees no change in the compatibility answers, which is correct: the grant did not change.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"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 is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Unicode data files and any associated documentation (the \"Data Files\") or Unicode software and any associated documentation (the \"Software\") to deal in the Data Files or Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies.\" The permission carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, as Apache-2.0 does, because the notice has to survive the relicensing.","action":"applied"}],"family":"Python, PHP, Unicode and W3C","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"version","notes":"cc:legalcode points at the Unicode copyright page rather than the current license.txt, because license.txt now serves the v3 text; the archived 2016 wording is the second see-also URL SPDX lists."}