The Fair License is a short, simple and

permissive free software licence A permissive software license, sometimes also called BSD-like or BSD-style license, is a free-software license which instead of copyleft protections, carries only minimal restrictions on how the software can be used, modified, and redistributed, ...

. Its text is composed of only one sentence and a disclaimer, thus being the shortest license ever approved by the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

. It is also possible to use the Fair License for images, books, music or more generally all kinds of media. The text of the license is as follows:



Usage of the works is permitted provided that this instrument is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the works is notified of this instrument.

DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.

More popular alternatives to the Fair License are the

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

, the Zero-clause BSD license and the

ISC license The ISC license is a permissive free software license published by the Internet Software Consortium, now called Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). It is functionally equivalent to the simplified BSD and MIT licenses, but without language dee ...

that are also composed of few sentences, but their disclaimers are longer.

History

The author, James William Pye, submitted the license for approval in January 2004. During the approval process, James answered to some questions as quoted below and proposed a draft version: Three days later, the almost-final version was defined as such: On year later James William Pye summarized his motivation as such: In 2015 Brazilian programmer Talles Lasmar determined the Fair License to be dead (broken links, deleted Wikipedia article). He contacted the original author and

OSI OSI may refer to: Places * Osijek Airport (IATA code: OSI), an airport in Croatia * Ősi, a village in Veszprém county, Hungary * Oši, an archaeological site in Semigallia, Latvia * Osi, a village in Ido-Osi, Ekiti State, Nigeria * Osi, Ekiti ...

, and created a new web site for it at http://fairlicense.org, which is also no longer active.

Translations

In 2007, published a Japanese translation as such:

<著作権情報>

本成果物は、本契約書が成果物に保持され、これにより本成果物を使用する者すべてに本契約書が示されることを条件に、使用が許可されます。

免責条項： 本成果物の保証は一切ありません。

In 2013 users on the ''French Language

Stack Exchange Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows th ...

'' proposed a French translation as such:



Les œuvres peuvent être réutilisées à condition d'être accompagnées du texte de cette licence, afin que tout utilisateur en soit informé.

AVERTISSEMENT : LES ŒUVRES N'ONT AUCUNE GARANTIE.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Fair license
at the

Software Package Data Exchange Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) is an open standard for software bill of materials (SBOM). SPDX allows the expression of components, licenses, copyrights, security references and other metadata relating to software. Its original purpose w ...

Free and open-source software licenses Permissive software licenses

History

Translations

See also

References

External links