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2026

GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants

The or-later form of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3. A variant models the same legal text with one thing changed, so it is a license of its own with an address of its own and it is listed like any other.

Also known as GFDL 1.3 invariants, GNU FDL 1.3 invariants, GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
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/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only

Permissions

  • Charge distribution fee from the text The text says: "However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies." Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • 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

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • 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

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • 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

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
    • Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
  • 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.

Prohibitions

  • Change license from the text Not permitted: Change license. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.
  • Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

License-wide duties

  • Share alike from the text The text says: "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it." Adaptations have to be licensed under the same license or one the license names as compatible.

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.

No default rule of that graph reaches this license: it speaks about every act the rules are about.

Further terms

These are the things the license says about itself beyond the acts it permits, forbids and requires: when it ends, how long there is to put a breach right, which law governs it, and so on. A term that comes from the DALICC vocabulary links to its definition.

Or later version option
No

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

Info

Target asset types
Creative work (i.e. text, picture, sound, movie), Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
Legal code
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
Free Software Foundation
SPDX identifier
GFDL-1.3-invariants-only on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
GFDL-1.3-invariants-only

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/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only",
  "license-title": "GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants",
  "spdx-id": "GFDL-1.3-invariants-only",
  "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/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only" rel="license">GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants</a>.</p>

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

Badge DALICC badge for GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants

Markdown 

[![License: GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GFDL-1.3-invariants-only/badge.svg" alt="License: GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 only - invariants"></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
11 recorded, 6 applied to the record, 2 proposed

The record models the identifier SPDX uses for a document released under version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation License, with Invariant Sections, and under that version only. The legal text is the same document that the GnuFreeDocumentationLicense record models, so the deontic model is that record statement for statement. Whether a document has Invariant Sections is stated in the document's own licence notice, not in the licence text, so no statement of the record can differ on it; the record says which identifier it stands for and the gap finding below says what the library would need to model the difference.

11 findings

  • info Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    File name, record id, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are all GFDL-1.3-invariants-only. SPDX splits version 1.3 into six identifiers, by whether the document has Invariant Sections and by whether a later version may be used; the record for the plain GFDL-1.3-only identifier is GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, which carries the older descriptive file name.

  • major Rubric 10 dalicc:variantOf applied

    The record copies GnuFreeDocumentationLicense statement for statement. What differs: the identifier, the SPDX identifier, dct:title, dct:alternative, the pair dalicc:variantKind "version-option" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:GnuFreeDocumentationLicense, and dalicc:orLaterVersionOption, which the base record does not carry at all. The record GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only carries the same model, for the same reason: one text, two identifiers.

  • major Rubric 7 dalicc:orLaterVersionOption applied

    dalicc:orLaterVersionOption is false. This identifier names version 1.3 and no later one, which is what the "-only" in it says, and section 10 gives the option only where the document asks for it: "If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation." cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual; section 1 grants "a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration".

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Section 2: "You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially", "you may accept compensation in exchange for copies" and "You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies." Section 4 permits a Modified Version. The ten permissions of the base record follow from those sentences: odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:display, odrl:present, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks, dalicc:ModifiedWorks, cc:CommercialUse and dalicc:chargeDistributionFee.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    cc:ShareAlike is a duty of the licence itself, from section 4: a Modified Version must be released "under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document". Attribution, notice and source-code duties hang on distribute, modify and derive, and dalicc:modificationNotice on modify and derive, from the conditions of section 4. The three duty nodes whose action is dct:source are carried over from the base record unchanged; see the finding below.

  • minor Rubric 5 odrl:duty proposed

    Three duty nodes, on distribute, modify and derive, carry "odrl:action dct:source". dct:source is a Dublin Core property and not an action, so the dependency graph cannot see the duty and the validator counts it among the actions outside the ODRL, CC and DALICC vocabularies. The review of GnuFreeDocumentationLicense already proposes replacing it with cc:SourceCode, which each of the three nodes already carries beside it. The proposal is repeated in the set report; changing it here alone would break the rule that this record equals its base, and the three records of the pair should be corrected in one step.

  • minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition proposed

    dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited, which is the whole-work copyleft shape and follows section 4. dalicc:promote is prohibited although the text has no trademark clause; that statement is the library-wide default and comes from the base record. Section 2 states a prohibition the record does not carry: "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures covers it exactly and is proposed for the three records of the family together.

  • minor Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer applied

    The record carries one clause literal, the section 1 sentence about Warranty Disclaimers included by reference, and no dalicc:LiabilityLimitation. That is the state of the base record, and its review already says that this licence has no warranty clause of its own, so the field is arguably empty rather than wrong. Nothing was added here, because the text is the same document.

  • minor Rubric 2 odrl:target none

    The asset collection carries dalicc:CreativeWork and dcmitype:Software, as in the base record. Section 1 defines the Document as "any manual or other work, in any medium", so dcmitype:Text would fit better than dcmitype:Software; the review of the base record already proposes that change, and it belongs to all three records at once.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check of app.services.composer, run with licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, reports 0 conflicts for this record.

  • gap Rubric 8 vocabulary none

    Nothing in the vocabulary says whether a document carries Invariant Sections, which is the only thing this identifier adds to GFDL-1.3-only. Section 4(L) requires you to "Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles", and section 1 says "The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections." Proposed terms: dalicc:invariantSectionsOption as an annotation naming which of the SPDX identifiers the record stands for, and dalicc:invariantSections, dalicc:coverTexts and dalicc:transparentCopy as duty actions for the three conditions of sections 3 and 4 that no term reaches. Until they exist, the identifier, the title and the alternatives are the only place where the distinction is visible.

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.

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    3 changes

    • changed duty cc:ShareAlike

      was duty cc:ShareAlike

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it."

    • changed permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee

      was permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies."

    • 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 (GNU copyleft family (GPL, LGPL, AGPL, FDL)).

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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.