Quavern Open Source License — version 1.0
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Short name: QOSL-1.0 · SPDX identifier: LicenseRef-QOSL-1.0
Text of 15 September 2026 · Status: draft under legal review. Its first use is the repository of oss.quavern.com. If the review changes the text, the change is published under a new version number at https://oss.quavern.com/licences/qosl/.
This licence exists in English and in French. Both versions are equally authentic (section 12).
Preamble
This preamble explains why Quavern publishes under this licence. It is not a condition of the licence and does not limit any right granted below.
Quavern publishes software so that it can be inspected, reused and maintained for the long run. Changes to the files we publish should stay open for the people who use them, including when the software is only reached over a network; the rest of a larger program remains its author's choice.
Much of what we publish handles open data. Its producers ask to be credited, and this licence keeps their credit attached to the software.
Quavern does not build generators of images, video or music, because those systems are mostly trained on the work of artists without their consent. We ask everyone who uses our software to respect the people whose work it processes. That request is a position, not a restriction: the licence grants its rights for every purpose.
1. Definitions
1.1 "Licensor" means each person who distributes a Work under this licence: the initial author of a Covered File and every Contributor.
1.2 "Contributor" means each person who creates, or contributes to the creation of, a Contribution.
1.3 "Contribution" means the Covered Files or Modifications created or contributed by a particular Contributor.
1.4 "Covered File" means a file in Source Form to which the Notice of Exhibit A has been attached, a file in Executable Form built from such a file, and any Modification of either.
1.5 "Work" means the Covered Files distributed together under this licence.
1.6 "Modification" means any of the following: a change to a Covered File, including an addition or a deletion; a new file that contains any part of a Covered File; or a translation of a Covered File into another programming language.
1.7 "Larger Work" means a work that combines Covered Files with other material in separate files that are not Covered Files.
1.8 "Source Form" means the form preferred for making modifications, including any documentation, build scripts and interface definitions needed to build and run the software.
1.9 "Executable Form" means any form other than Source Form.
1.10 "Distribute" means to make a copy of a Covered File available to any other person, in any form and by any means.
1.11 "Remote Use" means making the functionality of a Covered File, in its original or modified form, available to people other than You, through a computer network, including as a website, an application programming interface or a hosted service. Use exclusively by Your own employees or by contractors working exclusively on Your behalf is not Remote Use.
1.12 "Secondary Licence" means the GNU General Public License version 2.0 or later, the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 or later, the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0 or later, and the European Union Public Licence version 1.2.
1.13 "Attribution Notices" means the copyright, licence, patent, trademark and data attribution notices contained in a Work, including every notice that credits the producer or the licence of data the Work contains, retrieves or displays.
1.14 "Patent Claims" of a Contributor means any patent claim, now owned or later acquired, that the Contributor has the right to license and that would be infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or otherwise transferring its Contributions.
1.15 "You" means the person or legal entity exercising rights under this licence, together with every entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with it. "Control" means ownership of more than fifty percent of the shares or voting rights, or the power to direct the entity's management.
2. Grant of rights
2.1 Copyright. Each Contributor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence, for the whole duration of the author's rights and related rights in its Contributions, to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, arrange, display, perform, distribute, communicate to the public, make available and otherwise exploit its Contributions, alone or as part of a Larger Work, in Source Form or Executable Form, on any medium, for any purpose.
2.2 Patents. Each Contributor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence under its Patent Claims to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise transfer its Contributions, alone or combined with the Work to which they were contributed.
2.3 Effective date. These grants take effect for each Contribution on the date the Contributor first Distributes it.
2.4 Limits. No patent licence is granted under 2.2 for claims infringed by software or hardware that is not part of the Work, by a change made by anyone other than the Contributor, or by the combination of its Contributions with other material, except as part of the Work. No right is granted in any trademark (section 11).
2.5 Contributions. A Contributor who submits a Contribution for inclusion in a Work distributed under this licence grants that Contribution under this licence, unless it states otherwise in writing at the time of submission.
2.6 Sufficiency. The rights granted in this section are all the rights this licence grants. Any other right remains with its holder.
3. Conditions
3.1 Covered Files in Source Form. Every Covered File You Distribute in Source Form must remain under this licence. You must include a copy of this licence or its address with it. You may not offer or impose terms that change or restrict the recipients' rights under this licence.
3.2 Executable Form. If You Distribute Covered Files in Executable Form, You must also make their Source Form available, together with the Executable Form or by a reasonable means indicated to the recipients, at a charge no higher than the cost of distribution, for as long as You Distribute the Executable Form. You must inform the recipients of this licence and of how to obtain the Source Form.
3.3 Remote Use of modified files. If You offer a Modification of a Covered File for Remote Use, You must offer the people using it the Source Form of every Covered File You have modified, at no charge, through a notice they can readily find in the service (for example in its documentation, its interface or its responses). Remote Use of unmodified Covered Files carries no such obligation. This obligation covers the Covered Files only, never the other files of a Larger Work.
3.4 Larger Works. You may Distribute or offer for Remote Use a Larger Work under terms of Your choice, provided the Covered Files it contains meet sections 3.1 to 3.3 and 3.5. If the Larger Work combines Covered Files with material under a Secondary Licence, You may additionally Distribute those Covered Files under that Secondary Licence, so that recipients can use the Larger Work under it. This permission does not apply to a Covered File whose Notice carries the statement of Exhibit B.
3.5 Notices. You must keep every Attribution Notice intact in the Covered Files You Distribute and must not alter it, except to correct it. Where a Work displays to its users the credit or the licence of the data it uses, You must not remove or alter that display for the data concerned.
3.6 Changes. Every Covered File You modify must carry a notice that states that You changed it, and the date of the change.
3.7 Additional offers. You may offer warranty, support, indemnity or liability obligations to recipients, for a fee or not, but only in Your own name and at Your own risk, and You must make clear that no Contributor makes that offer.
4. Impossibility
If a law, a regulation or a court decision prevents You from complying with all of this licence for some or all of a Work, You must comply with it to the greatest extent possible and state, in a text file distributed with the Work, what You cannot comply with and why.
5. Termination
5.1 Your rights under this licence end automatically if You fail to comply with it. They are reinstated if You end the breach within thirty days of the first notice You receive of it from a Licensor, provided it is the first time that Licensor has notified You of a breach.
5.2 If You start legal proceedings alleging that a Work, or a Contribution included in it, infringes a patent, other than a counterclaim in proceedings started against You, every patent licence granted to You under 2.2 for that Work ends on the day the proceedings start.
5.3 A termination does not affect the licences validly granted to other people by You before it.
6. No warranty
To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Work is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. You bear the risk of the quality and performance of the Work.
7. Limitation of liability
To the extent permitted by applicable law, no Contributor is liable to You for any direct or indirect damage arising from this licence or from the use of, or the inability to use, the Work. This section does not limit liability for gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or death or personal injury, nor any right a consumer holds under mandatory law.
8. Governing law and disputes
This licence is governed by French law. The parties will first seek an amicable settlement. Failing one within sixty days, disputes between professionals are brought before the competent courts of Bordeaux, France. Nothing in this section removes a consumer's right to bring proceedings before the courts designated by mandatory law.
9. Versions
9.1 Quavern, a French simplified joint-stock company with a sole shareholder (SASU) whose registered office is in Bordeaux, or its successor, is the steward of this licence. Only the steward may publish new versions, each with a distinct version number.
9.2 You may use a Work under the version of this licence under which You received it, or under any later version published by the steward, unless the Notice of the Work states that it is available under version 1.0 only.
9.3 Anyone may create a new licence from this text, provided it bears a different name, does not use the name Quavern or QOSL, and does not suggest that the steward endorses it.
10. Author's moral rights
Nothing in this licence waives an author's moral rights where they cannot be waived. To the extent permitted by applicable law, each Contributor agrees not to exercise those rights to oppose Modifications made in accordance with this licence.
11. Trademarks
This licence grants no right to use the names, logos or trademarks of Quavern or of any Contributor, except as reasonably needed to state the origin of a Work and to reproduce its Notices.
12. Languages
This licence is written in English and in French. Both versions are equally authentic. They are intended to have the same meaning; any difference between them is resolved according to that shared meaning and the purpose of this licence.
13. Severability
If a provision of this licence is held unenforceable, it is reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the other provisions remain in force.
Exhibit A — Notice
Attach this notice to every Covered File, in a comment or in a file next to it:
SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-QOSL-1.0
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holder>
This file is subject to the Quavern Open Source License, version 1.0.
A copy is available at https://oss.quavern.com/licences/qosl/1.0/Exhibit B — Incompatible with Secondary Licences
A Licensor who does not permit section 3.4's Secondary Licence option for a file adds this line to its Notice:
This file is incompatible with Secondary Licences, as defined by the Quavern Open Source License, version 1.0.