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Unlicense

The Unlicense

A public domain dedication written for software, with a fallback license. OSI-approved, and it asks nothing of you.

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What it does

The Unlicense is a short dedication that puts software in the public domain, written for code rather than for creative works. It carries the same fallback as CC0: where a dedication has no legal effect, the text grants anyone the right to use, copy, change, publish and sell the code without condition. The OSI approved it in 2020, so an approval list limited to OSI-approved licenses accepts it. You meet it on small Go and Rust utilities, on youtube-dl, and sometimes as one arm of a dual declaration.

Details

Nothing about the Unlicense changes when you ship. There is no notice to carry, no credit line, no source duty, and no difference between a hosted service and a binary you hand to a customer. What is worth knowing is why the fallback paragraph exists. Several countries do not let an author abandon copyright, so without that paragraph the dedication would have no effect there, and you would be relying on a promise instead of a grant. The text also says nothing about patents, so treat that question separately.

Pros

  • Nothing to attach besides recording that the component is in the inventory.
  • No copyleft and no notice condition, so binaries do not need an extra licenses file for this component alone.

Cons

  • Some buyers still want the dedication text on file. "No conditions" is not the same as "no record."
  • Jurisdiction and moral-rights questions still exist around true public-domain dedications. Counsel should look at high-stakes use.

What it allows and requires

Choose a category to see the full grant in one scannable list. Permissions show what the license allows, limits show what it withholds, and obligations show the conditions your release process must satisfy.

Permissions

  • Commercial use

    You may use the work commercially. These texts are written to drop almost every restriction.

  • Modify

    You may change the work and keep or publish those changes under your own terms.

  • Distribute

    You may give copies away, including inside a closed product, without a copyleft duty.

What Unlicense requires when you ship

Unlicense asks nothing of you: no notice, no attribution, no source duty. It still belongs on the attestation page so a buyer sees the whole inventory rather than only the interesting rows. The steps below are how to keep that record honest.

  1. You meet the terms by using the code. The Unlicense states no condition, so nothing has to travel with your build.

  2. You give a reviewer what they ask for when you store the Unlicense text on the component, even though the license does not require it.

  3. You answer the policy question quickly when you note that the OSI approved this license, which many approval lists check first.

  4. You cover the jurisdiction gap when you rely on the fallback grant in the second paragraph rather than on the dedication alone.

  5. You keep the patent question honest when you treat this as a waiver and not as Apache-2.0, whose section 3 grants patent rights explicitly.

The duties named in Unlicense

Unlicense names no duties. The empty list is the point. Keep the identifier on the record anyway so the inventory is complete.

Include notice

Nothing is required on the face of the text. Keeping the SPDX id and the dedication on your record is still how buyers check the claim.

Things to be aware of

  • Teams write it off as not OSI-approved. It has been approved since 2020, so an approval list built on the OSI needs no exception for it.
  • Teams think public domain is the whole story. Read the fallback sentence, because that is where the grant sits in countries where a waiver fails.
  • Teams expect a patent grant. There is none, so choose Apache-2.0 when a component sits close to patented functionality.
  • Teams remove the text from the published list because no notice is required. Keep it, so a buyer reads a grant instead of an empty field.

What the The Unlicense does not do

Search results often flatten The Unlicense into a slogan. These are the usual misreads. Unlicense is a grant with conditions, not a permission to skip the paperwork below.

  • the Unlicense does not create a notice or attribution duty. Teams still list it so buyers see the whole inventory.
  • It is not a warranty or a patent grant. Public-domain style texts waive conditions; they do not promise the code is free of defects.

How Unlicense differs from nearby licenses

These licenses are often confused with Unlicense, but their release duties differ. Each row summarizes what the license requires when you ship. Open the linked page for the full checklist.

Unlicense
A public domain dedication written for software, with a fallback license. OSI-approved, and it asks nothing of you.
CC0-1.0
CC0 waives copyright and adds a fallback license where a waiver is impossible. No credit required, and no patent rights.
public-domain
Public domain is a status, not a license. Nothing is asked of you when the status is real, and the risk is that it often is not.
MIT
MIT lets you ship the code inside a closed, paid product. The one condition is that the copyright line and license text travel with every copy.

Common questions about The Unlicense

Answers to common questions about what The Unlicense requires, when its duties apply, and what evidence belongs with a release.

What is the The Unlicense?

The Unlicense is a short dedication that puts software in the public domain, written for code rather than for creative works. It carries the same fallback as CC0: where a dedication has no legal effect, the text grants anyone the right to use, copy, change, publish and sell the code without condition. The OSI approved it in 2020, so an approval list limited to OSI-approved licenses accepts it. You meet it on small Go and Rust utilities, on youtube-dl, and sometimes as one arm of a dual declaration.

What does Unlicense require when you ship a product?

You meet the terms by using the code. The Unlicense states no condition, so nothing has to travel with your build. You give a reviewer what they ask for when you store the Unlicense text on the component, even though the license does not require it. You answer the policy question quickly when you note that the OSI approved this license, which many approval lists check first. You cover the jurisdiction gap when you rely on the fallback grant in the second paragraph rather than on the dedication alone. You keep the patent question honest when you treat this as a waiver and not as Apache-2.0, whose section 3 grants patent rights explicitly.

Should Unlicense still appear on an attestation page?

Yes. The Unlicense asks nothing, and buyers still want the whole inventory rather than only the interesting rows.

How is Unlicense different from Creative Commons Zero v1.0?

Unlicense asks this: A public domain dedication written for software, with a fallback license. OSI-approved, and it asks nothing of you. Creative Commons Zero v1.0 asks this: CC0 waives copyright and adds a fallback license where a waiver is impossible. No credit required, and no patent rights. Open the Creative Commons Zero v1.0 page for what that license requires when you ship. Do not treat the SPDX ids as interchangeable because the short names look similar.

Where do I record Unlicense for a buyer?

SourceTrust fetches the published artifact, extracts the license file it finds, and compares that text against the Unlicense wording the package declares. The Unlicense is short and rarely edited, so this one often lands as confirmed and the text is stored on the component without anyone touching it. Every other outcome waits for a person to accept it. No checklist item appears, because none of the six external obligations matches this license.

Where do I record Unlicense for a buyer?

SourceTrust fetches the published artifact, extracts the license file it finds, and compares that text against the Unlicense wording the package declares. The Unlicense is short and rarely edited, so this one often lands as confirmed and the text is stored on the component without anyone touching it.

Every other outcome waits for a person to accept it. No checklist item appears, because none of the six external obligations matches this license.

Read /docs/auto-fetch-license for how the fetch decides.

See also

The hub is the pillar for this cluster. Sibling licenses are the other spokes. Product FAQ links explain how SourceTrust records the duty, not the license text itself.

Practical guidance for procurement review, not legal advice. Confirm high-stakes use with counsel.

Ship the proof.

Import The Unlicense and the rest of what you ship. Free to import and review. You only pay when you publish.

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