{"id":"VSL-1.0","title":"Vovida Software License v1.0","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/VSL-1.0.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the Vovida Software License version 1.0, a four-condition BSD license. Conditions one and two are the usual notice conditions, condition three is the endorsement bar and condition four requires a derived product to carry a different name, which is modelled as a dalicc:rename duty on modify and derive. The liability clause is the one clause in this review group that names a money figure.","findings":[{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"\"Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met\". The permissive core, as on BSD-3-Clause.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"The conditions are the three BSD conditions: the copyright notice, the list of conditions and the disclaimer must be retained in source redistributions and reproduced in binary redistributions, so cc:Attribution and cc:Notice are duties on distribute, modify and derive.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"Condition 4 reads: \"Products derived from this software may not be called \"VOCAL\", nor may \"VOCAL\" appear in their name, without prior written permission.\" dalicc:rename is therefore a duty on modify and derive: a changed work has to be given a different name. This is the same reading BSD-4-Clause style naming conditions get elsewhere in the library.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"Condition 3 reads: \"The names \"VOCAL\", \"Vovida Open Communication Application Library\", and \"Vovida Open Communication Application Library (VOCAL)\" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission.\" That is dalicc:promote as a prohibition. dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited because the text requires the license itself to travel with every copy, which is the reading IscLicense and BSD-3-Clause take of the same clause. The MIT record does not carry the prohibition although its text has the same requirement, so the library is not uniform here. (Corrected on 2026-09-15 by the verification of this review group: see the rubric 3 finding on relicensing below.)","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:LiabilityLimitation","description":"The liability clause caps damages at a figure: in no event shall the licensor be liable for any damages in excess of $1,000. It is quoted verbatim, including the figure, because the cap is the substance of the clause.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Two sentences are quoted: the scope sentence, which excludes third party software incorporated in the library and licensed separately, and condition 4, whose detail the dalicc:rename duty does not carry.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"The text names no legal system and no term, so cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual.","action":"none"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"One odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dcmitype:Software, following BSD-3-Clause. The text licenses software in source and binary form.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check with the axioms of dg_default returned no conflicts.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"Against BSD-3-Clause the difference is the naming condition, which the library expresses as a dalicc:rename duty, and the damages cap in the liability clause.","action":"none"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Library convention 15: a licence that asks for no reciprocity and no source code asks only that the notice travels with the copy, which is a duty on the acts it governs and not a bar on putting the copy under other terms. dalicc:ChangeLicense is therefore a permission here, and the prohibition the earlier reading wrote is removed. The text reads: \"Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.\" The permission carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, as Apache-2.0 does, because the notice has to survive the relicensing.","action":"applied"}],"family":"Permissive: MIT, ISC and BSD-like","port_of":null,"variant_kind":null,"notes":"Modelled from the SPDX plain text. dct:publisher names Vovida Networks, Inc., the licensor in the copyright line."}