Licensing materials
OLPC is distributing laptops for children to communities throughout the developing world, with trial projects underway in Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Nigeria, and Thailand. The laptops are intended to be tools for exploration and creation; as such, all materials shipped on the laptops will be free for children to use, change, and share. Software and content collections on the laptops are all freely licensed under one of the following licenses:
To license your works under the Creative Commons Public Domain [CC-PD] or Attribution [CC-BY] licenses, our preferred licenses for educational materials, please attach or include the text of the license description to your materials, or include it in a text file in the main directory of your activity or content bundle:
and link to the license page online for details, translations, and context.
To license code under the GNU General Public License, you will need to include the full text of those licenses with your work; see How to use the GPL.
Attribution
You will be attributed as the creator or publisher of these works wherever they are used. Moral rights guarantee this in many parts of the world; a CC Attribution license adds an extra emphasis on doing so.
If you would like to be attributed in a particular way - with connection to a logo, originating website, or source repository, please include those materials and links xalong with the work. Please also include information about any authors and organizations who have been involved with the creation of a work who should receive similar recognition.
Compatibility and other licenses
The GPL is the most widely-used license for free software, and is a copyleft license. The MIT license is compatible with the GPL and most other licenses, and is not copyleft, meaning it does not impose most of the restrictions the GPL does on reuse.
The CC-BY license is compatible with most online collections and archives of texts and media, particularly Connexions and Wikimedia Commons. The equivalent copyleft license is CC-BY-SA [also called CC-SA].
To use other licenses, print and link similarly to their texts:
Licenses for software
GNU General Public License [GPL]
Abridged from the GNU website:
- The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. The GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program-- to make sure it remains free software for all its users.
- Read the GPL Legal Code
The CC-GNU GPL adds the Creative Commons' metadata and Commons Deed to the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License.
- Read the Creative Commons GNU-GPL Commons Deed
GNU Lesser General Public License [LGPL]
Using the ordinary GPL for your software makes it available only for free programs; using the LGPL makes it available for use in proprietary programs as well. Read Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library for an in-depth comparison between the GPL and the LGPL.
- Read the LGPL Legal Code
The CC-GNU LGPL adds the Creative Commons' metadata and Commons Deed to the Free Software Foundation's GNU Lesser General Public License.
- Read the Creative Commons GNU-LGPL Commons Deed
MIT License
- Read the MIT License Legal Code
Licenses for texts, media, and other content
Recommended: Public Domain
Once placed in the public domain, your work may be freely used, changed, and shared by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.
Peter St-Andre has an excellent essay, "Who's Afraid of the Public Domain?" that outlines the reasons to release your work into the public domain.
The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication [CC-PD]
One way to release your work into the public domain is to visit the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication Form, which will guide you through the process of placing your work under the Creative Commons "Public Domain Dedication." The form will ask you for your email, name, and title of work, and send you a confirmation email to verify your contact information. Then, it will autogenerate the license text for you along with instructions for how to include it in your work.
- Read the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
Creative Commons Attribution license [CC-BY]
This license lets others use, change, and share your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you with original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered in terms of what others can do with your work.
- Read the Commons Deed
- View the Legal Code
This license lets others use, change, and share your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you with original creation and license new creations under identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.
- Read the Commons Deed
- View the Legal Code
Creative Commons Non-commercial license [CC-NC]
This license lets others use, change, and share your work non-commercially, and although their new works must acknowledge you, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
- Read the Commons Deed
- View the Legal Code
GNU Free Documentation License [GFDL]
Similar to the GPL (see above), the GNU Free Documentation License is a form of copyleft intended for use on a manual, textbook or other document to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifications, either commercially or non-commercially.
- Read the current GNU Free Documentation License