Concept
Open licence
An open licence is a standard legal permission that lets anyone use, modify and share a work, with minimal conditions such as crediting the author.
How it connects
Related to
- Open licence relates to Creative Commons. Steward of the Creative Commons licence suite, the best-known family of open licences.
- Open licence relates to Creative Commons licences. Only CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA are on the conformant-licence list, so a CC licence is not always open.
- Open licence relates to Open access. The Budapest Open Access Initiative recommends CC BY or an equivalent licence as the optimal licence for open access.
- Open licence relates to Open Definition. Maintains the list of licences that conform to it.
- Open licence relates to Open Source Definition. OSI-approved licences are licences that comply with it.
- Open licence relates to Open Source Initiative. Approves licences that comply with the Open Source Definition.
- Open licence relates to SPDX. Its License List gives open and other licences standard identifiers.
- Open licence relates to Zenodo. Asks depositors to choose a licence for open access records.
Links
Details
Description
Licences such as the Creative Commons family give legal permission to reuse in advance, so reusers do not need to ask. The Open Definition maintains the list of licences that conform to it.
Attributes
| url | https://opendefinition.org/licenses/ |
|---|---|
| identifiers | wikidata: Q30939938 |
| status | active |
| governance | Not applicable |
| prominence | core |
| type | Concept |
| Tags | openness: open content, region: global |
Sources
- https://opendefinition.org/licenses/(opens in a new tab) (accessed 2026-11-12)
- https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/(opens in a new tab) (accessed 2026-11-12)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30939938(opens in a new tab) (accessed 2026-11-12)
- https://s3.amazonaws.com/documentos.anid.cl/estudios/Politica_acceso_a_informacion_cientifica_2022.pdf(opens in a new tab) (accessed 2026-11-13): Data policy, reusability criterion: clear and visible licences of use.
Last reviewed: 2026-11-12
Something wrong or missing in this entry? Suggest a change to the description or facts(opens in a new tab) · Suggest a change to its connections(opens in a new tab)