Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0
Also known as NPOSL-3.0, Non-Profit OSL 3.0, Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0.
- Commercial use
- not allowed
- Share alike
- required
- Attribution
- required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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.
Permissions
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Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
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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.
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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.
- Recipient assent from the text Making a reasonable effort to obtain the express assent of a recipient to the terms of the license before the work reaches them, rather than relying on the notice alone.
- Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
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Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
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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.
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Network use trigger from the text Making the work available over a network, deploying it or providing a service with it.
Duties
- Source code from the text Providing access to the source code of the work with every copy distributed.
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Patent grant from the text Granting a license under the patent claims that a contributor holds and that the contribution necessarily infringes.
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Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
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Sublicense from the text The text says: "Licensor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license, for the duration of the copyright, to do the following:" Granting a third party rights in the work under a license of the licensee's own, rather than passing on the original license.
Prohibitions
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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.
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Charge distribution fee from the text Not permitted: Charge distribution fee. Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
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Charge license fee from the text Not permitted: Charge license fee. Charging a fee for granting someone a license to the work.
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Commercial use from the text Not permitted: Commercial use. The text says: "You may distribute or communicate the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof under this Non-Profit OSL 3.0 license only if You make the representation and declaration in paragraph (a) of this Section 17." Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
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Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. The text says: "Neither the names of Licensor, nor the names of any contributors to the Original Work, nor any of their trademarks or service marks, may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this Original Work without express prior permission of the Licensor." Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.
License-wide duties
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Share alike from the text The text says: "to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Non-Profit Open Software License or as provided in section 17(d);" 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.
- Patent license ends if you sue
- Yes. Not a ban on suing: a patent claim over the work ends the patent license, or the whole license, as the text provides.
- Terminates on breach
- Yes
Clauses
Warranty disclaimer
The Original Work is provided under this License on an "AS IS" BASIS and WITHOUT WARRANTY, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY OF THE ORIGINAL WORK IS WITH YOU. This DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY constitutes an essential part of this License. No license to the Original Work is granted by this License except under this disclaimer.
Limitation of liability
Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, shall the Licensor be liable to anyone for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or the use of the Original Work including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses. This limitation of liability shall not apply to the extent applicable law prohibits such limitation.
Additional clauses
3) Grant of Source Code License. The term "Source Code" means the preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and all available documentation describing how to modify the Original Work. Licensor agrees to provide a machine-readable copy of the Source Code of the Original Work along with each copy of the Original Work that Licensor distributes. Licensor reserves the right to satisfy this obligation by placing a machine-readable copy of the Source Code in an information repository reasonably calculated to permit inexpensive and convenient access by You for as long as Licensor continues to distribute the Original Work. 4) Exclusions From License Grant. Neither the names of Licensor, nor the names of any contributors to the Original Work, nor any of their trademarks or service marks, may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this Original Work without express prior permission of the Licensor. Except as expressly stated herein, nothing in this License grants any license to Licensor's trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets or any other intellectual property. No patent license is granted to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have made, or import embodiments of any patent claims other than the licensed claims defined in Section 2. No license is granted to the trademarks of Licensor even if such marks are included in the Original Work. Nothing in this License shall be interpreted to prohibit Licensor from licensing under terms different from this License any Original Work that Licensor otherwise would have a right to license. 5) External Deployment. The term "External Deployment" means the use, distribution, or communication of the Original Work or Derivative Works in any way such that the Original Work or Derivative Works may be used by anyone other than You, whether those works are distributed or communicated to those persons or made available as an application intended for use over a network. As an express condition for the grants of license hereunder, You must treat any External Deployment by You of the Original Work or a Derivative Work as a distribution under section 1(c). 9) Acceptance and Termination. If, at any time, You expressly assented to this License, that assent indicates your clear and irrevocable acceptance of this License and all of its terms and conditions. If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License. This License conditions your rights to undertake the activities listed in Section 1, including your right to create Derivative Works based upon the Original Work, and doing so without honoring these terms and conditions is prohibited by copyright law and international treaty. Nothing in this License is intended to affect copyright exceptions and limitations (including "fair use" or "fair dealing"). This License shall terminate immediately and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License upon your failure to honor the conditions in Section 1(c). 10) Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work with other software or hardware. 11) Jurisdiction, Venue and Governing Law. Any action or suit relating to this License may be brought only in the courts of a jurisdiction wherein the Licensor resides or in which Licensor conducts its primary business, and under the laws of that jurisdiction excluding its conflict-of-law provisions. The application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded. Any use of the Original Work outside the scope of this License or after its termination shall be subject to the requirements and penalties of copyright or patent law in the appropriate jurisdiction. This section shall survive the termination of this License. 16) Modification of This License. This License is Copyright © 2005 Lawrence Rosen. Permission is granted to copy, distribute, or communicate this License without modification. Nothing in this License permits You to modify this License as applied to the Original Work or to Derivative Works. However, You may modify the text of this License and copy, distribute or communicate your modified version (the "Modified License") and apply it to other original works of authorship subject to the following conditions: (i) You may not indicate in any way that your Modified License is the "Open Software License" or "OSL" and you may not use those names in the name of your Modified License; (ii) You must replace the notice specified in the first paragraph above with the notice "Licensed under <insert your license name here>" or with a notice of your own that is not confusingly similar to the notice in this License; and (iii) You may not claim that your original works are open source software unless your Modified License has been approved by Open Source Initiative (OSI) and You comply with its license review and certification process. 17) Non-Profit Amendment. The name of this amended version of the Open Software License ("OSL 3.0") is "Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0". The original OSL 3.0 license has been amended as follows: (a) Licensor represents and declares that it is a not-for-profit organization that derives no revenue whatsoever from the distribution of the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof, or from support or services relating thereto. (b) The first sentence of Section 7 ["Warranty of Provenance"] of OSL 3.0 has been stricken. For Original Works licensed under this Non-Profit OSL 3.0, LICENSOR OFFERS NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER. (c) In the first sentence of Section 8 ["Limitation of Liability"] of this Non-Profit OSL 3.0, the list of damages for which LIABILITY IS LIMITED now includes "direct" damages. (d) The proviso in Section 1(c) of this License now refers to this "Non-Profit Open Software License" rather than the "Open Software License". You may distribute or communicate the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof under this Non-Profit OSL 3.0 license only if You make the representation and declaration in paragraph (a) of this Section 17. Otherwise, You shall distribute or communicate the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof only under the OSL 3.0 license and You shall publish clear licensing notices so stating. Also by way of clarification, this License does not authorize You to distribute or communicate works under this Non-Profit OSL 3.0 if You received them under the original OSL 3.0 license. (e) Original Works licensed under this license shall reference "Non-Profit OSL 3.0" in licensing notices to distinguish them from works licensed under the original OSL 3.0 license.
Info
- Target asset types
- Software
- Region / jurisdiction
- Worldwide
- Validity
- Perpetual
- Source
- https://spdx.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0.html
- Legal code
- https://opensource.org/license/NPOSL-3.0
- This description is published under
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Publisher
- Lawrence Rosen
- Attribution name
- Lawrence Rosen
- SPDX identifier
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NPOSL-3.0on the SPDX license list - DALICC identifier
NPOSL-3.0
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/NPOSL-3.0",
"license-title": "Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0",
"spdx-id": "NPOSL-3.0",
"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/NPOSL-3.0> .
RDF, JSON-LD
{
"@context": {
"cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
},
"@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
"cc:license": {
"@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NPOSL-3.0"
}
}
HTML attribution
<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NPOSL-3.0" rel="license">Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0</a>.</p>
This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.
Badge
Markdown
[](https://dalicc.net/license-library/NPOSL-3.0)
HTML
<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/NPOSL-3.0"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/NPOSL-3.0/badge.svg" alt="License: Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0"></a>
Review
- Written from the license text by
- Giray Havur
- Written on
- 2026-09-15
- Second review
- not yet done
- Record changed since this review
- yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
- Findings
- 9 recorded, 6 applied to the record, 0 proposed
The Open Software License 3.0 with a Non-Profit Amendment: the same reciprocal grant, the same external deployment clause and the same patent retaliation, but only a not-for-profit organisation that derives no revenue from the work may distribute under it. The record is OSL-3.0 with commercial use and both fee permissions turned into prohibitions. Nothing here is legal advice.
9 findings
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info Rubric 2
odrl:targetapplieddcmitype:Software alone, the type 32 of the library's software records carry, among them MIT, BSD-3-Clause, GPL-3.0-only and the sibling OSL-3.0. These texts license an "original work of authorship", which would also fit dalicc:CreativeWork, the type the AFL-3.0 record carries beside Software and Dataset; the review group keeps the narrower reading its review plan prescribes, so that all nine records of the family answer alike and the association can widen them in one pass.
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major Rubric 3
odrl:permissionappliedSection 1 grants a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license, for the duration of the copyright" to reproduce, adapt, distribute or communicate, perform and display, so dalicc:sublicense is a permission, and section 2 grants a patent licence, so dalicc:patentGrant is one. odrl:grantUse is not written, for the reason the OSL-3.0 review gives: it would conflict with the share-alike duty under the current axioms.
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major Rubric 4
odrl:prohibitionappliedAmendment 17(a) says the Licensor "is a not-for-profit organization that derives no revenue whatsoever from the distribution of the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof, or from support or services relating thereto", and 17(d) lets You distribute under this licence "only if You make the representation and declaration in paragraph (a)". cc:CommercialUse, dalicc:chargeDistributionFee and dalicc:chargeLicenseFee are therefore prohibited, which is where this record parts company with OSL-3.0. dalicc:ChangeLicense, dalicc:promote and dalicc:patentRetaliationTermination are prohibited as in OSL-3.0.
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major Rubric 5
odrl:dutyappliedClause 1(c) keeps the proviso that copies You distribute or communicate "shall be licensed under this Non-Profit Open Software License or as provided in section 17(d)", so cc:ShareAlike is a licence-wide duty. Section 6, Attribution Rights, puts cc:Attribution, cc:Notice and dalicc:modificationNotice on odrl:modify and odrl:derive; cc:SourceCode hangs on odrl:distribute.
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minor Rubric 6
dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimerappliedAmendment 17(b) strikes the warranty of provenance, so the quoted disclaimer begins at "The Original Work is provided under this License on an "AS IS" BASIS"; 17(c) adds direct damages to the limitation of liability, which the quoted section 8 carries. dalicc:additionalClauses holds sections 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 16 and the whole of the Non-Profit Amendment.
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info Rubric 7
cc:jurisdictionappliedSection 11 names no legal system, only the forum where the Licensor resides or does business, so cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide.
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gap Rubric 8
dalicc:additionalClausesnoneThree gaps, all quoted instead: the external deployment trigger of section 5 (proposed dalicc:networkUseTrigger), the assent requirement of section 9 (proposed dalicc:recipientAssent) and the automatic termination (proposed dalicc:terminatesOnBreach). A fourth would be useful here: the non-profit status of the distributor is a property of the licensee, not an action, and the record expresses it only through the three prohibitions; proposed dalicc:nonProfitLicenseeOnly.
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info Rubric 9
recordnoneThe consistency check of app.services.composer with the axioms of dg_default returned an empty list for this record.
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info Rubric 10
familynoneNPOSL-3.0 is OSL-3.0 plus section 17. The library decision on charging under a non-commercial licence (keep dalicc:chargeDistributionFee under NC) was not followed here, because 17(a) bars revenue from distribution in as many words, which is stricter than the Creative Commons non-commercial clause the decision was taken for.
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.
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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 version 2 JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML
5 changes
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changed
duty cc:ShareAlikewas
duty cc:ShareAlikeManual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Non-Profit Open Software License or as provided in section 17(d);"
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changed
permission dalicc:sublicensewas
permission dalicc:sublicenseManual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "Licensor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license, for the duration of the copyright, to do the following:"
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changed
prohibition cc:CommercialUsewas
prohibition cc:CommercialUseManual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may distribute or communicate the Original Work or Derivative Works thereof under this Non-Profit OSL 3.0 license only if You make the representation and declaration in paragraph (a) of this Section 17."
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changed
prohibition dalicc:promotewas
prohibition dalicc:promoteManual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "Neither the names of Licensor, nor the names of any contributors to the Original Work, nor any of their trademarks or service marks, may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this Original Work without express prior permission of the Licensor."
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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.
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Version 1
Created from the license text on 2026-09-15 (Academic Free and Open Software).
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.