Adaptive Public License 1.0

Also known as APL-1.0.

Commercial use: allowed
Share alike: not required
Attribution: required (keep the copyright and license notices)

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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/APL-1.0

Permissions

Charge distribution fee from the text
Charge license fee from the text
Commercial use from the text
Derivative works from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Modification notice from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Derive from the text
Display from the text
Distribute from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Grant use from the text
Modify from the text
Duties
- Modification notice from the text
No-warranty notice from the text
Present from the text
Reproduce from the text

Prohibitions

Add statement from the text

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

Promote by default rule (adopted)

This license says nothing about Promote, and the graph applies this reading in all jurisdictions it covers: it is not permitted unless the license permits it.

A licence that says nothing about endorsement is read as not allowing it: the licence gives the licensee no right to use the licensor's name or marks in a way that states or implies that the licensor endorses the licensee or its product, while stating truthfully that a work is based on or uses the licensed work is a different act that this rule does not decide. A copyright licence grants rights in the work, and the right to use a name or a trademark is a separate right under trademark law and the protection of names, which a silent copyright licence does not pass on. Combining a licence that is silent about endorsement with one that permits it shows a conflict marked as coming from this rule.

Basis Trademark and name rights are separate from copyright: Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 article 9 lets the proprietor of an EU trade mark prevent all third parties not having his consent from using the sign in the course of trade, and Directive (EU) 2015/2436 article 10, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a), section 12 BGB and section 43 ABGB protect marks and names in the same way. The library's evidence is Creative Commons 4.0 section 2(b)(2): Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License. A copyright licence that is silent grants no right to use the licensor's name or marks to suggest endorsement (Worldwide)

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS LICENSE, THE LICENSED WORK IS PROVIDED UNDER THIS LICENSE ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY, GUARANTEE, ASSURANCE OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE LICENSED WORK IS WITH RECIPIENT. SHOULD ANY LICENSED WORK PROVE DEFECTIVE IN ANY RESPECT, RECIPIENT (NOT THE INITIAL CONTRIBUTOR OR ANY SUBSEQUENT CONTRIBUTOR) ASSUMES THE COST OF ANY NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. THIS CLAUSE CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF ANY LICENSED WORK IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS LICENSE INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THIS DISCLAIMER.

Info

Target asset types: Software
Region / jurisdiction: Worldwide
Validity: Perpetual
Source: http://opensource.org/licenses/APL-1.0
Legal code: http://opensource.org/licenses/APL-1.0
This description is published under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher: - not specified -
Attribution name: - not specified -
SPDX identifier: APL-1.0 on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier: APL-1.0

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/APL-1.0",
  "license-title": "Adaptive Public License 1.0",
  "spdx-id": "APL-1.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/APL-1.0> .

RDF, JSON-LD

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/APL-1.0"
  }
}

HTML attribution

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/APL-1.0" rel="license">Adaptive Public License 1.0</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge

Markdown

[![License: Adaptive Public License 1.0](https://dalicc.net/license-library/APL-1.0/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/APL-1.0)

HTML

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/APL-1.0"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/APL-1.0/badge.svg" alt="License: Adaptive Public License 1.0"></a>

Review

Status: Reviewed against the license text
Last checked: 2026-09-15
Reviewer: Giray Havur
Verdict: corrected during the review
Record changed since this review: yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings: 7 recorded, 3 applied to the record, 1 proposed

The Adaptive Public License is a reciprocal license: executable distributions must be made under section 2 of the same license and must be accompanied by source code or a written offer for it. The record prohibited cc:ShareAlike, the exact opposite of what the text requires. That prohibition was removed; turning it into a duty needs a decision on the dependency graph first.

7 findings

major Rubric 5 odrl:prohibition applied

Section 3.2 states that an Executable Distribution may be made "under the terms of Section 2 of this License, provided the Executable Distribution is made available under and accompanied by a copy of this License". The record prohibited cc:ShareAlike, which reverses the license. Removed.
major Rubric 5 odrl:duty proposed

The positive half of the same finding: reciprocity should appear as a license-wide cc:ShareAlike duty, the way the GNU and Mozilla records model it. It was not applied because the record also permits odrl:grantUse, and the dependency graph axiom "cc:ShareAlike dalicc:contradicts odrl:grantUse" would then report a direct conflict. Sections 2.1(d) and 2.2(d) do grant sublicensing, so the axiom, not the record, is what has to move. See the review group report.
minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

dalicc:addStatement is prohibited. Section 3.5 lets a distributor offer warranty, support or indemnity on its own behalf, so the prohibition is too broad, though section 3.1 does forbid terms that alter the license.
gap Rubric 8 vocabulary none

Sections 2.1(b) and 2.2(b) grant patent licenses and section 8.2 terminates them on patent action. The Supplement File mechanism, which lets each licensor name its own jurisdiction and trademark terms in Parts 1 to 3, has no term either. Proposed: dalicc:patentGrant, dalicc:patentRetaliationTermination, dalicc:licenseSupplement.
minor Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction none

cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide, but Part 1 of the Supplement File names the governing jurisdiction, so the answer is licensor-specific rather than worldwide.
minor Rubric 10 record applied

Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9 and 10: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. Library convention 14: the warranty and liability literals carried a padding space inside their quotation marks.
minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

dalicc:promote was prohibited and no sentence of this text supports it. The statement was the library's reading of a legal default, that a copyright licence which says nothing about endorsement grants no right to it, and it sat in 519 of 581 records as a house convention. That reading is now an adopted dalicc:DefaultRule of the core dependency graph, which supplies it to every licence that is silent about the action, so a compatibility check reaches the same answer and the record states only what the text states. Removed on 2026-09-23; see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

The content review of 2026-09-15 removed 1 prohibition and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15, left endorsement to the default rule of the core dependency graph and named the license the record itself is published under.

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7 changes
- added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed
  
  Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.
- added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date
  
  Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.
- removed prohibition cc:ShareAlike
  
  Review finding Section 3.2 states that an Executable Distribution may be made "under the terms of Section 2 of this License, provided the Executable Distribution is made available under and accompanied by a copy of this License". The record prohibited cc:ShareAlike, which reverses the license. Removed.
- changed cc:attributionName "- not specified -"
  
  was cc:attributionName "- not specified - "
  
  Manual edit Library convention 14: the warranty and liability literals carried a padding space inside their quotation marks.
- changed dct:publisher "- not specified -"
  
  was dct:publisher "- not specified - "
  
  Manual edit Library convention 14: the warranty and liability literals carried a padding space inside their quotation marks.
- removed prohibition dalicc:promote
  
  Manual edit The endorsement prohibition rested on no sentence of the text; the default rule for endorsement now supplies it.
- added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
  
  Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.
Version 1

The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

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Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.