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📝 Update licensing
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‎docs/productive/licensing.rst‎

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@@ -89,9 +89,8 @@ the public domain of software.
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Non-software licences
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---------------------
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Open source software licences can also be used for works that are not software.
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They are often also the best choice, especially if the works in question are
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edited and versioned as source code.
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Open source software licences are often used for works that are not software.
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However, they are often not the best choice.
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Data, media, :abbr:`etc. (et cetera)`
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -104,37 +103,49 @@ they are `not recommended for software
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<https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software>`_.
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.. tip::
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The `DEAL consortium <https://deal-konsortium.de/en/>`_ recommends the CC BY
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licence for Open Access publications, see also `Why CC BY is the Best Choice
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for Open Access Publishing <https://deal-konsortium.de/en/why-ccby>`_.
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:abbr:`RADAR (Research Data Repository)`, a cross-disciplinary repository for
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archiving and publishing research data, recommends only one of the `CC
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licences
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<https://radar.products.fiz-karlsruhe.de/en/radarfeatures/lizenzen-fuer-forschungsdaten#cc-licenses>`_.
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The `Open Knowledge Foundation <https://okfn.org/en/>`_ has also published a set
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of `Open Data Commons <https://opendatacommons.org>`_ licences for
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data/databases:
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`Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/>`_
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Attribution and sharing under equal terms.
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`Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1-0/>`_
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Attribution.
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`Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1-0/>`_
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The PDDL places the data in the public domain and waives all rights.
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`GovData <https://www.govdata.de>`_ has submitted the *Data Licence Germany* in two variants:
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* `Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0
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<https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0>`_
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* `Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0
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<https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/zero-2-0>`_
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When using the `Community Data License Agreement – Permissive, Version 2.0 <https://cdla.dev/permissive-2-0/>`_ the copyright notices must be retained.
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Another possible licence for artistic works is the `Free Art License 1.3
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<https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/>`_.
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* The `DEAL consortium <https://deal-konsortium.de/en/>`_ recommends the CC
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BY licence for Open Access publications of research results, see also `Why
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CC BY is the Best Choice for Open Access Publishing
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<https://deal-konsortium.de/en/why-ccby>`_.
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* :abbr:`RADAR (Research Data Repository)`, a cross-disciplinary repository
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for archiving and publishing research data, recommends only one of the `CC
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licences
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<https://radar.products.fiz-karlsruhe.de/en/radarfeatures/lizenzen-fuer-forschungsdaten#cc-licenses>`_.
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* The `Open Knowledge Foundation <https://okfn.org/en/>`_ has also published a
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set of `Open Data Commons <https://opendatacommons.org>`_ licences for
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data/databases:
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`Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/>`_
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Attribution and sharing under equal terms.
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`Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1-0/>`_
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Attribution.
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`Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1-0/>`_
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The PDDL places the data in the public domain and waives all rights.
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* `GovData <https://www.govdata.de>`_ has submitted the *Data Licence Germany*
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in two variants:
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* `Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0
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<https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0>`_
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* `Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0
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<https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/zero-2-0>`_
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* The Community Data License Agreement <https://cdla.dev>_ can be used in four
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different ways:
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* `Community Data License Agreement – Permissive, Version 2.0
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<https://cdla.dev/permissive-2-0/>`_
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* `Community Data License Agreement – Sharing, Version 1.0
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<https://cdla.dev/sharing-1-0/>`_
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* `Open Use of Data Agreement, Version 1.0
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<https://cdla.dev/open-use-of-data-agreement-v1-0/>`_
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* `Computational Use of Data Agreement, Version 1.0
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<https://cdla.dev/computational-use-of-data-agreement-v1-0/>`_
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* Another possible licence for artistic works is the `Free Art License 1.3
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<https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/>`_.
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Machine learning models
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -164,19 +175,93 @@ been developed for a company or specific models:
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* `BigScience OpenRAIL-M (Responsible AI License
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<https://www.licenses.ai/blog/2022/8/26/bigscience-open-rail-m-license>`_
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RAIL-D
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There are other `Responsible AI Licenses (RAIL) <https://www.licenses.ai>`_
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with various restrictions on use:
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OpenRAIL-D
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contains usage restrictions that only apply to the data.
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RAIL-A
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OpenRAIL-A
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contains usage restrictions that only apply to the
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application/executability.
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RAIL-M
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OpenRAIL-M
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contains usage restrictions that only apply to the model.
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RAIL-S
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.. seealso::
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`RAIL-M
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<https://www.licenses.ai/blog/2022/8/26/bigscience-open-rail-m-license>`_
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OpenRAIL-S
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contains usage restrictions that only apply to the source code.
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AI models that are licensed under an open source licence but whose training data
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and programmes have **not** been published are not compliant with the `Debian
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Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)
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<https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines>`_, see also
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`Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models
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<https://www.debian.org/vote/2025/vote_002>`_.
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For the `Open Source Initiative (OSI) <https://opensource.org/>`__, the
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definition of open source AI also goes far beyond the use of a model – it must
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also be understandable how the model was created, and the model must also be
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able to be modified and shared with others for any purpose. These four freedoms
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are fulfilled with
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Open Data
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Sufficiently detailed information about the data used to train the system so
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that an essentially equivalent system can be built
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Open Code
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The complete source code used to train and operate the system under licences
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approved by the OSI
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Open Weights
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Model parameters, such as weights or other configuration settings under
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licences approved by the OSI
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Accordingly, the OSI developed `OSAID 1.0
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<https://opensource.org/ai/open-source-ai-definition>`_, which applies to the
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following models:
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* EleutherAI: `Pythia <https://github.com/EleutherAI/pythia>`_, `GPT-J
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<https://www.eleuther.ai/artifacts/gpt-j>`_
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* The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence: `OLMo 2
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<https://allenai.org/olmo>`_, `Molmo <https://allenai.org/blog/molmo>`_
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* LLM360: `K2
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<https://huggingface.co/collections/LLM360/k2-6622ae6911e3eb6219690039>`_,
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`Amber
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<https://huggingface.co/collections/LLM360/amber-65e7333ff73c7bbb014f2f2f>`_,
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`CrystalCoder <https://huggingface.co/LLM360/Crystal>`_
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* Google: `T5
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<https://github.com/google-research/text-to-text-transfer-transformer>`_
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Presumably the following models would also fulfil the requirements if they were
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to change their legal conditions:
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* BigScience: `Bloom <https://huggingface.co/bigscience/bloom>`_
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* BigCode: `StarCoder 2 <https://github.com/bigcode-project/starcoder2>`_
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* Technology Innovation Institute: `Falcon
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<https://huggingface.co/collections/tiiuae/falcon-h1-6819f2795bc406da60fab8df>`_
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However, there are also some models that have been analysed and failed because
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they lack required components and/or legal agreements:
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* Meta: Llama2
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* xAI: Grok
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* Microsoft: Phi-2
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* Mistral AI: Mixtral
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.. seealso::
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* `Licensing Machine Learning models
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<https://book.the-turing-way.org/reproducible-research/licensing/licensing-ml>`_ by The Turing Way Community
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<https://book.the-turing-way.org/reproducible-research/licensing/licensing-ml>`_
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by The Turing Way Community
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* Alek Tarkowski, Open Future in partnership with the Open Source Initiative:
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`Data Governance in Open Source AI
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<https://opensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-OSI-DataGovernanceOSAI-final-v5.pdf>`_
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Databases
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~~~~~~~~~
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One of the few licences for databases is the `Open Data Commons Open Database
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License (ODbL) v1.0 <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/>`_, which is
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used, for example, by `OpenStreetMap (OSM) <https://www.openstreetmap.org>`_.
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Documentation
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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