Fluid Licensing
Contents
Licensing in the Fluid Community
The Fluid community is a network of open source projects and contributors who are dedicated to inclusive design. Fluid supports a variety of tools and resources, each of which may be distributed under different licenses. In general, we advocate for "open-open" licensing models in which anyone can freely contribute, and which place few restrictions on modification, redistribution, or use in commercial or other open source projects.
This page documents the licenses, agreements, and associated documentation used by Fluid-supported projects such as Infusion, FLOE, the Social Justice Repair Kit, and others.
Source Code Licenses
Fluid community projects typically use the 3-Clause BSD license, also known as the "New" or "Modified" BSD license. Infusion has historically been dual-licensed under 3-BSD and the Educational Community License 2.0, which is based on the Apache license.
Content Licenses
This includes all resources shared by contributors to the Fluid community, except for software source code. This includes:
- Documentation, examples, tutorials, and application programming interface (API) reference information
- Design resources, mock-ups, wireframes, functional requirements, and work-in-progress
- Logos, style guides, icons, and image assets
- Essays, notes, and documentation of the approach and thinking behind the design and development process
The Fluid community's documentation is licensed under several different versions of the Creative Commons Attribution license, including the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada and Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licenses. Please see individual project sites or repositories for details about the licensing of a specific project or resource.
All new documentation contributed to the Fluid community is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. By contributing to the Fluid Project Wiki, you agree to share your work under the terms of this license.
License Headers and File Templates
Typically, a project or resource will include two different kinds of license declarations:
- A LICENSE.txt file at the root of the project's source code repository, which provides the full text of the license
- Headers at the top of each source code file, which list each major contributor to the file, and provide a link to the full text of the license
It is also possible to "override" the root LICENSE file by including an alternate LICENSE file in a subdirectory of the repository. For example, this could be used to declare the license of a third party library if it is included in the project's repository.
License File Template
This project's source code is distributed under the 3-Clause BSD license.
Documentation, designs, and other non-code resources are distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
===================
Source Code License
===================
Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>
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.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
distribution.
3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON
ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
=====================
Documentation License
=====================
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
By exercising the Licensed Rights (defined below), You accept and agree
to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International Public License ("Public License"). To the
extent this Public License may be interpreted as a contract, You are
granted the Licensed Rights in consideration of Your acceptance of
these terms and conditions, and the Licensor grants You such rights in
consideration of benefits the Licensor receives from making the
Licensed Material available under these terms and conditions.
Section 1 -- Definitions.
a. Adapted Material means material subject to Copyright and Similar
Rights that is derived from or based upon the Licensed Material
and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered,
arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring
permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the
Licensor. For purposes of this Public License, where the Licensed
Material is a musical work, performance, or sound recording,
Adapted Material is always produced where the Licensed Material is
synched in timed relation with a moving image.
b. Adapter's License means the license You apply to Your Copyright
and Similar Rights in Your contributions to Adapted Material in
accordance with the terms and conditions of this Public License.
c. Copyright and Similar Rights means copyright and/or similar rights
closely related to copyright including, without limitation,
performance, broadcast, sound recording, and Sui Generis Database
Rights, without regard to how the rights are labeled or
categorized. For purposes of this Public License, the rights
specified in Section 2(b)(1)-(2) are not Copyright and Similar
Rights.
d. Effective Technological Measures means those measures that, in the
absence of proper authority, may not be circumvented under laws
fulfilling obligations under Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright
Treaty adopted on December 20, 1996, and/or similar international
agreements.
e. Exceptions and Limitations means fair use, fair dealing, and/or
any other exception or limitation to Copyright and Similar Rights
that applies to Your use of the Licensed Material.
f. Licensed Material means the artistic or literary work, database,
or other material to which the Licensor applied this Public
License.
g. Licensed Rights means the rights granted to You subject to the
terms and conditions of this Public License, which are limited to
all Copyright and Similar Rights that apply to Your use of the
Licensed Material and that the Licensor has authority to license.
h. Licensor means the individual(s) or entity(ies) granting rights
under this Public License.
i. Share means to provide material to the public by any means or
process that requires permission under the Licensed Rights, such
as reproduction, public display, public performance, distribution,
dissemination, communication, or importation, and to make material
available to the public including in ways that members of the
public may access the material from a place and at a time
individually chosen by them.
j. Sui Generis Database Rights means rights other than copyright
resulting from Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases,
as amended and/or succeeded, as well as other essentially
equivalent rights anywhere in the world.
k. You means the individual or entity exercising the Licensed Rights
under this Public License. Your has a corresponding meaning.
Section 2 -- Scope.
a. License grant.
1. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License,
the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free,
non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to
exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to:
a. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or
in part; and
b. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.
2. Exceptions and Limitations. For the avoidance of doubt, where
Exceptions and Limitations apply to Your use, this Public
License does not apply, and You do not need to comply with
its terms and conditions.
3. Term. The term of this Public License is specified in Section
6(a).
4. Media and formats; technical modifications allowed. The
Licensor authorizes You to exercise the Licensed Rights in
all media and formats whether now known or hereafter created,
and to make technical modifications necessary to do so. The
Licensor waives and/or agrees not to assert any right or
authority to forbid You from making technical modifications
necessary to exercise the Licensed Rights, including
technical modifications necessary to circumvent Effective
Technological Measures. For purposes of this Public License,
simply making modifications authorized by this Section 2(a)
(4) never produces Adapted Material.
5. Downstream recipients.
a. Offer from the Licensor -- Licensed Material. Every
recipient of the Licensed Material automatically
receives an offer from the Licensor to exercise the
Licensed Rights under the terms and conditions of this
Public License.
b. No downstream restrictions. You may not offer or impose
any additional or different terms or conditions on, or
apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the
Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the
Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed
Material.
6. No endorsement. Nothing in this Public License constitutes or
may be construed as permission to assert or imply that You
are, or that Your use of the Licensed Material is, connected
with, or sponsored, endorsed, or granted official status by,
the Licensor or others designated to receive attribution as
provided in Section 3(a)(1)(A)(i).
b. Other rights.
1. Moral rights, such as the right of integrity, are not
licensed under this Public License, nor are publicity,
privacy, and/or other similar personality rights; however, to
the extent possible, the Licensor waives and/or agrees not to
assert any such rights held by the Licensor to the limited
extent necessary to allow You to exercise the Licensed
Rights, but not otherwise.
2. Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this
Public License.
3. To the extent possible, the Licensor waives any right to
collect royalties from You for the exercise of the Licensed
Rights, whether directly or through a collecting society
under any voluntary or waivable statutory or compulsory
licensing scheme. In all other cases the Licensor expressly
reserves any right to collect such royalties.
Section 3 -- License Conditions.
Your exercise of the Licensed Rights is expressly made subject to the
following conditions.
a. Attribution.
1. If You Share the Licensed Material (including in modified
form), You must:
a. retain the following if it is supplied by the Licensor
with the Licensed Material:
i. identification of the creator(s) of the Licensed
Material and any others designated to receive
attribution, in any reasonable manner requested by
the Licensor (including by pseudonym if
designated);
ii. a copyright notice;
iii. a notice that refers to this Public License;
iv. a notice that refers to the disclaimer of
warranties;
v. a URI or hyperlink to the Licensed Material to the
extent reasonably practicable;
b. indicate if You modified the Licensed Material and
retain an indication of any previous modifications; and
c. indicate the Licensed Material is licensed under this
Public License, and include the text of, or the URI or
hyperlink to, this Public License.
2. You may satisfy the conditions in Section 3(a)(1) in any
reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context in
which You Share the Licensed Material. For example, it may be
reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or
hyperlink to a resource that includes the required
information.
3. If requested by the Licensor, You must remove any of the
information required by Section 3(a)(1)(A) to the extent
reasonably practicable.
4. If You Share Adapted Material You produce, the Adapter's
License You apply must not prevent recipients of the Adapted
Material from complying with this Public License.
Section 4 -- Sui Generis Database Rights.
Where the Licensed Rights include Sui Generis Database Rights that
apply to Your use of the Licensed Material:
a. for the avoidance of doubt, Section 2(a)(1) grants You the right
to extract, reuse, reproduce, and Share all or a substantial
portion of the contents of the database;
b. if You include all or a substantial portion of the database
contents in a database in which You have Sui Generis Database
Rights, then the database in which You have Sui Generis Database
Rights (but not its individual contents) is Adapted Material; and
c. You must comply with the conditions in Section 3(a) if You Share
all or a substantial portion of the contents of the database.
For the avoidance of doubt, this Section 4 supplements and does not
replace Your obligations under this Public License where the Licensed
Rights include other Copyright and Similar Rights.
Section 5 -- Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability.
a. UNLESS OTHERWISE SEPARATELY UNDERTAKEN BY THE LICENSOR, TO THE
EXTENT POSSIBLE, THE LICENSOR OFFERS THE LICENSED MATERIAL AS-IS
AND AS-AVAILABLE, AND MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF
ANY KIND CONCERNING THE LICENSED MATERIAL, WHETHER EXPRESS,
IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHER. THIS INCLUDES, WITHOUT LIMITATION,
WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ABSENCE OF LATENT OR OTHER DEFECTS,
ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT
KNOWN OR DISCOVERABLE. WHERE DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES ARE NOT
ALLOWED IN FULL OR IN PART, THIS DISCLAIMER MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
b. TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE, IN NO EVENT WILL THE LICENSOR BE LIABLE
TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL THEORY (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION,
NEGLIGENCE) OR OTHERWISE FOR ANY DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR OTHER LOSSES,
COSTS, EXPENSES, OR DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS PUBLIC LICENSE OR
USE OF THE LICENSED MATERIAL, EVEN IF THE LICENSOR HAS BEEN
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSSES, COSTS, EXPENSES, OR
DAMAGES. WHERE A LIMITATION OF LIABILITY IS NOT ALLOWED IN FULL OR
IN PART, THIS LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
c. The disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liability provided
above shall be interpreted in a manner that, to the extent
possible, most closely approximates an absolute disclaimer and
waiver of all liability.
Section 6 -- Term and Termination.
a. This Public License applies for the term of the Copyright and
Similar Rights licensed here. However, if You fail to comply with
this Public License, then Your rights under this Public License
terminate automatically.
b. Where Your right to use the Licensed Material has terminated under
Section 6(a), it reinstates:
1. automatically as of the date the violation is cured, provided
it is cured within 30 days of Your discovery of the
violation; or
2. upon express reinstatement by the Licensor.
For the avoidance of doubt, this Section 6(b) does not affect any
right the Licensor may have to seek remedies for Your violations
of this Public License.
c. For the avoidance of doubt, the Licensor may also offer the
Licensed Material under separate terms or conditions or stop
distributing the Licensed Material at any time; however, doing so
will not terminate this Public License.
d. Sections 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 survive termination of this Public
License.
Section 7 -- Other Terms and Conditions.
a. The Licensor shall not be bound by any additional or different
terms or conditions communicated by You unless expressly agreed.
b. Any arrangements, understandings, or agreements regarding the
Licensed Material not stated herein are separate from and
independent of the terms and conditions of this Public License.
Section 8 -- Interpretation.
a. For the avoidance of doubt, this Public License does not, and
shall not be interpreted to, reduce, limit, restrict, or impose
conditions on any use of the Licensed Material that could lawfully
be made without permission under this Public License.
b. To the extent possible, if any provision of this Public License is
deemed unenforceable, it shall be automatically reformed to the
minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. If the provision
cannot be reformed, it shall be severed from this Public License
without affecting the enforceability of the remaining terms and
conditions.
c. No term or condition of this Public License will be waived and no
failure to comply consented to unless expressly agreed to by the
Licensor.
d. Nothing in this Public License constitutes or may be interpreted
as a limitation upon, or waiver of, any privileges and immunities
that apply to the Licensor or You, including from the legal
processes of any jurisdiction or authority.
Source Code File Header
/* <PROJECT NAME> Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER> Copyright <YEAR> <OTHER COPYRIGHT HOLDER> Licensed under the 3-Clause BSD license. You may not use this file except in compliance with this license. You may obtain a copy of the 3-Clause BSD License at https://github.com/fluid-project/<PROJECT REPOSITORY>/raw/master/LICENSE.txt */
Contributor License Agreements
Currently, the Fluid community asks each contributor to sign a Contributor License Agreement, which provides a clear agreement to share code under terms amenable to Fluid's licensing strategy. In order to publish source code in the Fluid repository, OCAD University needs permission from the creators of the code and from the organizations for which they work. The following agreements are provided for this purpose:
- Individual Contributor License Agreement (CLA) - to be signed by each code creator, covering any contributions made outside of the context of employment by an organization that owns the rights to the work
- Corporate Contributor License Agreement (CCLA) - to be signed by an appropriate person in an organization, which covers contributions made by employees when the owner owns the rights the work:
Signed agreements can be emailed, mailed, or faxed to Iris Neher at the Inclusive Design Research Centre.
The Fluid community is investigating more streamlined alternatives to our paper-based Contributor License Agreements.
Project-Specific Licensing Information
Infusion
The Fluid Infusion Framework is released under both the ECL 2.0 and 3-Clause BSD licenses, making it widely compatible with a variety of open source licenses as well as commercial code.
Templates are available for an Infusion-compatible LICENSE file, containing the full text of both the ECL 2.0 and BSD licenses, and for the embedded source code license header are available.
Infusion's documentation site is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Flexible Learning for Open Education (FLOE)
FLOE contributes to a variety of open educational resource community projects, such as PhET, PressBooks, the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure, and other projects under the terms of their licenses. In addition, FLOE's reusable components and tools are licensed dually under the terms of the ECL 2.0 and 3-Clause BSD licenses.
FLOE's Inclusive Learning Design Handbook and Inclusive Design Guide are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.
Social Justice Repair Kit
The Social Justice Repair Kit tools are distributed under the 3-Clause BSD license.
SJRK's resources and guides are often contributed to other community projects, such as the Inclusive Design Guide. In this case, they are distributed under the project's license. Other SJRK resources are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.