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2026

Beerware License

Also known as Beer-Ware License, Beerware, Beerware License, THE BEER-WARE LICENSE.

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/Beerware

Permissions

  • Change license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.

    Duties

    • Use a compliant license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Choosing a replacement license that stays compliant with the terms of the original license.
  • Charge distribution fee from the text Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Charge license fee from the text Charging a fee for granting someone a license to the work.
  • Commercial use from the text Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.

    Duties

    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.

    Duties

    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.
  • Sublicense from the text Granting a third party rights in the work under a license of the licensee's own, rather than passing on the original license.

Prohibitions

This license states no prohibitions.

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) Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

    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

Additional clauses

"THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42): <phk@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you can do whatever you want with this stuff.

Info

Target asset types
Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://spdx.org/licenses/Beerware.html
Legal code
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/Beerware
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
SPDX identifier
Beerware on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
Beerware

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/Beerware",
  "license-title": "Beerware License",
  "spdx-id": "Beerware",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

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

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

RDF, JSON-LD 

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

This license carries no attribution duty, so no credit line is offered here.

Badge DALICC badge for Beerware License

Markdown 

[![License: Beerware License](https://dalicc.net/license-library/Beerware/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/Beerware)

HTML 

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

Review

Written from the license text by
Giray Havur
Written on
2026-09-22
Second review
not yet done
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
12 recorded, 8 applied to the record, 0 proposed

Models the two-sentence Beerware licence. Everything is permitted as long as the notice stays with the file, so the record carries one duty, cc:Notice, on the acts that hand the work on. The beer sentence is a request and not a condition, so it is quoted and not modelled. The text has no warranty and no liability clause at all.

12 findings

  • info Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    File name, record identifier, SPDX identifier and IRI local name are all Beerware.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

    One odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dcmitype:Software. The licence is written as a comment header of a source file.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    The grant reads "As long as you retain this notice you can do whatever you want with this stuff". The record therefore permits reproduce, distribute, modify, derive, display, present, sublicense, commercial use, derivative works, modified works, the distribution fee and the licence fee. Nothing is carved out of "whatever you want".

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    dalicc:ChangeLicense is permitted and carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, because the one condition, the notice, has to survive the relicensing.

  • minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

    No prohibitions. The text has no trademark, endorsement or advertising clause, so dalicc:promote is not prohibited although most permissive records carry it. MIT-0 records the same silence.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    cc:Notice hangs off odrl:distribute, odrl:modify and odrl:derive, and is the whole of the licence: "As long as you retain this notice". There is no separate attribution clause, so cc:Attribution is not used.

  • minor Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    The beer sentence, "If we meet some day, and you think this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return", is not a duty. It is optional on its face, and the Fedora note on the text says that a mandatory version would make the licence non-free. It is quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses.

  • major Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer applied

    No dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer and no dalicc:LiabilityLimitation. The text has neither clause. The absence of the property says the text is silent, not that the author gave a warranty.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction applied

    The text names no legal system and sets no term, so cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual.

  • info Rubric 8 dalicc:additionalClauses none

    The beer request is quoted rather than modelled. It is not a vocabulary gap: a request that binds nobody has no deontic statement to make.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check of app.services.composer against the dependency graph dg_default returned an empty conflict list.

  • info Rubric 10 record none

    The nearest sibling is MIT-0, which also has no prohibition. The difference is that MIT-0 has no duty either, while Beerware keeps the notice, so this record carries cc:Notice and permits dalicc:ChangeLicense with the dalicc:compliantLicense duty rather than with none.

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.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The changes since version 1 recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

    2 changes

    • changed permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      was permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      Manual edit The statement is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing: the text does not state it in as many words. Its duty dalicc:compliantLicense is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing.

    • 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.

  2. Version 1

    Created from the license text on 2026-09-22 (Permissive variants).

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

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.