GNU General Public License v3.0 or later

Also known as GNU GPL Version 3 or later, GNU GPL v3 or later, GNU GPLv3+, GNU General Public License Version 3 or later, GPL Version 3 or later, GPL-3.0+.

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/GPL-3.0-or-later

Permissions

Charge distribution fee from the text
Commercial use from the text
Derivative works from the text
Derive from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Modification notice from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code 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
Modified works from the text
Modify from the text
Duties
- Attribution from the text
- Modification notice from the text
- Notice from the text
- Source code from the text
Patent grant from the text
Present from the text
Reproduce from the text

Prohibitions

Change license from the text

License-wide duties

Share alike from the text

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)

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.

Compatible with: AGPL-3.0
Compatible with: AGPL-3.0-or-later
Cure period: 30 days
Or later version option: Yes
Terminates on breach: Yes

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

Limitation of liability

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Accepting warranty or additional liability

you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee

Info

Target asset types: Software
Region / jurisdiction: Worldwide
Validity: Perpetual
Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
Legal code: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
This description is published under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher: Free Software Foundation
SPDX identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later on the SPDX license list
Version: 3.0
DALICC identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later

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/GPL-3.0-or-later",
  "license-title": "GNU General Public License v3.0 or later",
  "spdx-id": "GPL-3.0-or-later",
  "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/GPL-3.0-or-later> .

RDF, JSON-LD

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-3.0-or-later"
  }
}

HTML attribution

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/GPL-3.0-or-later" rel="license">GNU General Public License v3.0 or later</a>.</p>

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

Badge

Markdown

[![License: GNU General Public License v3.0 or later](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-3.0-or-later/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-3.0-or-later)

HTML

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-3.0-or-later"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/GPL-3.0-or-later/badge.svg" alt="License: GNU General Public License v3.0 or later"></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: 15 recorded, 12 applied to the record, 1 proposed

The record models the "or later" form of GPL version 3. Its legal text is the same document that GPL-3.0-only models, so the deontic model is that record statement for statement. The identifier adds one thing: the option section 14 gives the licensee to follow this version or any later version the Free Software Foundation publishes. Read the record as GPL-3.0-only with that option turned on.

15 findings

info Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

File name, record id, SPDX identifier and the local name of the IRI are all GPL-3.0-or-later. The deprecated short form GPL-3.0+ is carried as a dct:alternative so that a search for it reaches this record.
major Rubric 10 dalicc:variantOf applied

The record copies GPL-3.0-only statement for statement. What differs: the identifier, dct:title, dct:alternative, dalicc:orLaterVersionOption (true here, false there) and the pair dalicc:variantKind "version-option" with dalicc:variantOf dalicclib:GPL-3.0-only. The foaf:logo of the base record is kept, because it is the logo of the same licence text.
major Rubric 7 dalicc:orLaterVersionOption applied

Section 14 is the clause the flag stands for. It says that where the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License "or any later version" applies to it, "you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation". The same section lets a proxy decide which future versions may be used. cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType stays dalicc:perpetual: the text limits neither.
minor Rubric 6 dalicc:orLaterVersionOption applied

The licence text sets the phrase "or any later version" in curly quotation marks. The quotation in the finding above uses straight ones. Nothing else in the sentence was changed, and no clause literal of the record was touched by this.
major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

Section 4 grants conveying verbatim copies of the source, section 5 conveying modified source versions, section 6 conveying the work in object code, and section 4 adds: "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee." The ten permissions of the base record follow from those sentences: odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks, dalicc:ModifiedWorks, odrl:display, odrl:present, cc:CommercialUse and dalicc:chargeDistributionFee.
major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

Section 5(c) requires that "You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy", so the share-alike condition reaches the whole work and cc:ShareAlike is a duty of the licence itself. Attribution, notice and source-code duties hang on distribute, modify and derive; dalicc:modificationNotice hangs on modify and derive, from section 5(a): "The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date."
minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited, which is the whole-work copyleft shape and follows section 5(c). dalicc:promote is prohibited as well, although GPL version 3 has no trademark or endorsement clause of its own; the statement comes from the base record and is the library-wide default.
info Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer applied

The warranty disclaimer of section 15 and the limitation of liability of section 16 are kept as two literals, and the fee sentence of section 4 is dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance. All three are byte for byte the literals of GPL-3.0-only, because the text is the same document.
info Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

The asset collection carries dcmitype:Software, as in the base record. GPL version 3 governs programs: section 0 defines "The Program" as "any copyrightable work licensed under this License".
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 dalicc:additionalClauses none

Section 3 has no term: "No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures." It is a waiver of the licensor's power to forbid circumvention, not a bar on the licensee applying a measure, so dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures does not fit. Section 6 adds the Installation Information duty for a User Product, which has no term either. Proposed terms: dalicc:antiCircumventionWaiver and dalicc:installationInformation. The base record quotes neither clause, and quoting them here alone would break the rule that this record equals its base, so they stay proposals for the pair.
minor Rubric 3 record proposed

Three clauses could be modelled with terms that already exist, in both records of the pair at once. Section 11: "Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version." Section 10: "you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it." Section 8 ends the licence on breach and reinstates it permanently if you "cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice", and adds that termination "does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License". Adding the statements below here alone would break the rule that this record equals GPL-3.0-only, so they are proposed for both records together.
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.
minor Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance applied

dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance held the whole sentence of Section 4, "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee." Its first half is the permission to charge for a copy, which the record states as dalicc:chargeDistributionFee, and not a warranty clause. The literal now quotes only the second half, "you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee".
major Rubric 10 dalicc:compatibleWith applied

Section 13 reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work." A work under this licence can therefore go into a combined work released under AGPL-3.0; the AGPL text says the same the other way round. dalicc:compatibleWith names AGPL-3.0, AGPL-3.0-or-later.

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 changes since version 1 left endorsement to the default rule of the core dependency graph, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on, corrected it against its text on 2026-09-24, named the license the record itself is published under and recorded the licenses a work under it may be released under.

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10 changes
- removed prohibition dalicc:promote
  
  Manual edit The endorsement prohibition rested on no sentence of the text; the default rule for endorsement now supplies it.
- changed duty cc:ShareAlike
  
  was duty cc:ShareAlike
  
  Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy."
- changed permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee
  
  was permission dalicc:chargeDistributionFee
  
  Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."
- changed permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  was permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date."
- changed permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  was permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, cc:SourceCode, dalicc:modificationNotice]
  
  Manual edit Its duty dalicc:modificationNotice quotes "The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date."
- changed permission odrl:reproduce
  
  was permission odrl:reproduce
  
  Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."
- changed dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance "you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee"
  
  was dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."
  
  Manual edit The first half of the Section 4 sentence, "You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey", is the permission to charge for a copy, not a warranty clause.
- 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.
- added dalicc:compatibleWith dalicclib:AGPL-3.0
  
  Manual edit Section 13 reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work." A work under this licence can therefore go into a combined work released under AGPL-3.0; the AGPL text says the same the other way round.
- added dalicc:compatibleWith dalicclib:AGPL-3.0-or-later
  
  Manual edit Section 13 reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work." A work under this licence can therefore go into a combined work released under AGPL-3.0; the AGPL text says the same the other way round.
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.

Variants

3 records in the library model this same legal text with one thing changed: the option of a later version, an exception that lifts one condition, or a rider that adds one. Each of them is a license of its own and is listed like any other. See variant in the glossary.

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later with Autoconf exception 3.0 With an exception, version 3.0
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later with Bison exception 2.2 With an exception, version 3.0
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later with GCC Runtime Library exception 3.1 With an exception, version 3.0

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.