Licensing Frameworks and Guidelines¶
About this policy
These policies provide legal and procedural guidance to ensure that software developed, acquired, or reused by government entities adheres to clear and approved open-source licensing practices. They help standardize how public institutions manage intellectual property, clarify reuse rights, and reduce legal uncertainties across jurisdictions.
What we include
This section includes official frameworks, licensing guides, decrees, and strategic recommendations that define which licenses can be used by public sector entities, how to select them, and under what conditions software must be made available under open-source terms.
🌍 Policies¶
🇨🇦 Canada¶
- 🔗 Guide for Publishing Open Source Code
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📄 Overview:
The Guide for Publishing Open Source Code outlines licensing best practices for government OSS projects, recommending permissive (MIT, Apache 2.0) or reciprocal (GPL, LGPL, AGPL) licenses based on project needs. It advises selecting licenses aligned with community norms and ensuring compatibility with third-party components to enable compliant and effective open-source release.
- 📄 Overview:
The Open Source Software Form provides guidance for Canadian public administrations to register OSS projects along with their licensing information using standardized SPDX identifiers. By requiring submission of license details including short identifiers, URLs, and license levels, this process promotes consistency and legal clarity in how open-source software is shared and reused across jurisdictions. The use of SPDX ensures alignment with internationally recognized licensing practices for software, data, and related assets.
🇪🇪 Estonia¶
- 🔗 Interoperability Framework of the State Information System
- 📄 Overview:
The "Interoperability Framework of the State Information System" provides specific guidelines on licensing practices for software developed or procured by the Estonian public sector. The central policy, found in Requirement 2.37 under the principle of "Reusability," directs public institutions to use the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) when creating and releasing free software. This guidance is reinforced in Chapter 6, which recommends that custom software code procured by the government also be registered in a repository under a free software license, again citing the EUPL as the example. The framework further advises that procurement contracts should ensure the resulting software is usable without restriction across other public administration institutions, thereby establishing a clear preference for licenses that permit broad inter-agency sharing and reuse.
🇫🇷 France¶
- 🔗 Legal Guide for Open Source Software – Etalab
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📄 Overview:
Etalab’s legal guide supports public agents in navigating open-source licensing by clarifying which licenses are recommended, how to manage compatibility and patent clauses, and how to draft OSS-friendly contractual clauses. It also offers guidance for including OSS in public procurement and for releasing code under approved licenses from the first commit.
- 📄 Overview:
This decree establishes the list of approved open-source licenses that French public administrations may use for releasing software. It officially authorizes several permissive and reciprocal licenses including Apache 2.0, BSD, MIT, MPL 2.0, GPLv3, and CeCILL and sets a process for requesting approval of alternative licenses through the Interministerial Directorate for State IT Systems.
🇩🇪 Germany¶
- 🔗 openCode Licensing Rules
- 📄 Overview:
The openCode platform requires all published software to use OSI-approved open-source licenses. Automated checks verify license compliance, ensuring legal clarity and promoting consistent licensing practices across government OSS projects.
🇮🇹 Italy¶
- 🔗 Guidelines on the acquisition and reuse of software for public administrations
- 📄 Overview:
This policy mandates the use of open standards to ensure interoperability across all software acquired by public administrations. As specified in the assessment criteria outlined in Section 2.3.2, all potential software solutions—whether open source or proprietary—must be evaluated on their use of open data formats, open interfaces (including APIs), and established interoperability standards. This requirement is reinforced in Section 2.6.1, which stipulates that even proprietary software is only eligible for consideration if it allows for complete data export in a standard, open, and documented format to prevent vendor lock-in.
🇰🇷 South Korea¶
- 🔗 Open Source Software License Guide (2024 Edition)
- 📄 Overview:
The 2024 edition of the Open Source Software License Guide, issued by NIPA, provides comprehensive guidance on licensing compliance for organizations using open-source software. It outlines key legal obligations, compatibility and dual licensing, and includes distribution-specific checklists and case studies. This guide, along with its companion documents on corporate and public sector OSS governance, helps institutions understand and apply licensing frameworks in varied environments, ensuring legal clarity and responsible reuse.
🇨🇭 Switzerland¶
- 🔗 Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Official Duties (EMBAG)
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📄 Overview:
Article 9 provides clear directives on software licensing. It specifies that rights should be granted via private law licenses and, whenever practical, internationally recognized license texts should be utilized. It also mandates the exclusion of liability claims from licensees to the fullest extent legally possible, establishing a clear and risk-managed framework for government OSS releases.
- 📄 Overview:
This document provides a comprehensive licensing framework. Section 3 categorizes licenses (permissive, weak, and strong copyleft), while Section 4 lists specific licenses deemed "unproblematic" for government use. Section 5 offers prioritized recommendations for new government projects, advising specific licenses like AGPL v3 and Apache 2.0 based on strategic goals.
🇪🇸 Spain¶
- 🔗 Royal Decree 4/2010 on the National Interoperability Framework
- 📄 Overview:
Royal Decree 4/2010 establishes mandatory use of interoperability standards in Spain’s public sector, with a strong preference for open standards. Article 11 outlines this obligation, while Annexes I and II define the criteria for what qualifies as an open standard and describe the Common Interoperability Framework. The decree promotes open formats, protocols, and interfaces to ensure long-term accessibility, technological neutrality, and vendor independence in public ICT systems.
🇨🇭 Switzerland¶
- 🔗 Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Official Duties (EMBAG)
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📄 Overview:
Article 9 provides clear directives on software licensing. It specifies that rights should be granted via private law licenses and, whenever practical, internationally recognized license texts should be utilized. It also mandates the exclusion of liability claims from licensees to the fullest extent legally possible, establishing a clear and risk-managed framework for government OSS releases.
- 📄 Overview:
This document provides a comprehensive licensing framework. Section 3 categorizes licenses (permissive, weak, and strong copyleft), while Section 4 lists specific licenses deemed "unproblematic" for government use. Section 5 offers prioritized recommendations for new government projects, advising specific licenses like AGPL v3 and Apache 2.0 based on strategic goals.
🇬🇧 United kingdom¶
- 🔗 Service Manual: Making Source Code Open and Reusable)
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📄 Overview:
The Service Manual provides clear licensing guidance, advising UK government teams to release code under an Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved license, such as MIT. The "Licensing your code" section emphasizes legal clarity around reuse, default Crown Copyright, and the need for open licensing when publishing government-developed software, ensuring compliance and encouraging responsible sharing of public code.
- 📄 Overview:
The playbook provides clear guidance on software licensing by establishing a framework for intellectual property (IP) and the use of open source licenses. The section on "Open software" in Chapter 8 specifies that government-developed code should be published using an Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved license. Furthermore, the chapter's detailed discussion on IP ownership presents various models for consideration, guiding agencies on how to manage IP rights to maximize long-term value and enable the publication of government-funded work as open source material.
🇺🇸 United States¶
- 🔗 How to Open Source Code
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📄 Overview:
The guide provides a clear licensing framework in Step 2. It recommends using permissive open source licenses, specifically suggesting MIT, ISC, or BSD-3. For projects with potential patent involvement, it advises using Apache 2.0. The policy also explicitly counsels against using copyleft licenses for most federal government projects unless an expert is involved.
- 📄 Overview:
The policy provides a clear framework for licensing. It specifies that code created solely by CISA is dedicated to the U.S. public domain and uses a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) waiver for international copyright. It also defines how to handle licensing for "joint works" that incorporate code from other open source projects with different licenses.
🇺🇾 Uruguay¶
- 🔗 Law No. 19179: Regulation on Digital Information Formats and Software
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📄 Overview:
Article 5 establishes a clear legal framework by defining "free software" based on four essential conditions: freedom to use, study, copy/distribute, and improve/release improvements. This definition serves as the primary guideline for determining which software licenses are compliant with the law's requirements.
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🔗 Decree No. 44/015: Regulation of Law 19.179 on Digital Information and Software
- 📄 Overview:
This regulation provides a governance layer for the law's licensing principles. By granting AGESIC the authority to set technical standards (Article 4) and oversee the software procurement justification process (Article 8), it establishes a clear administrative framework for applying the national free software policy.
🇪🇺 European Commission¶
- 🔗 Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023: Think Open
- 📄 Overview:
The strategy provides clear guidance on licensing for software published by the Commission. Under the "Share" principle in Section 5.3, it states that the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) will be the preferred license for the publication of its IT projects. This aims to facilitate the sharing and reuse of software developed by public administrations.
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