Add License

Licenses • Re-Usability

Currently, if a license is not indicated for a component on publishing, a CC-BY license will be automatically applied to non-code Nodes, and an MIT license to those components that are code-based.

Before being able to publish a Node, you will be required to choose a license to clearly define the terms of re-use for the published work.

It is possible to license all components separately, in case you have stricter licensing requirements for some of your Node components.

You can always overwrite the license attached to any individual component. This means that while most of your components might be very permissively licensed (CC0, CC BY, etc.), your Node may also contain a component which has already been published elsewhere under a license that requires any re-publication to use the exact same licensing, as in CC BY-SA or similar.

Add a license to a Node component

License types can differ, and Nodes currently offers a wide variety to cover different types of files and information. Check the different types and what they mean below.

How to Add a License

Select your Node or the component within your Node you need to add a license to. NB: all your published work needs to have a license indicated.

In the Navigation bar at the top, choose the 'i' Information icon . This will open the Information/Metadata panel. You will see the option to 'Select License' under the license section. To apply the license to a specific component, select the component in the Drive Panel before selecting the license in the Information Panel.

Click on 'Select License' to see a dropdown menu of the different License options. You can use the search bar at the top of the list to find the license you want instead of scrolling through the list. Select the one you want, and it will be automatically applied.

Select & apply a license to a component

If you need help choosing the most applicable license, please have a read through the License Choice Guide below.

License Choice Guide

This is a quick guide on which licenses we suggest to use, and what all of them mean.

In the spirit of open science, we suggest you make your work "as open as possible, as restricted as necessary." Whenever you can, try to pick a permissive license.

What do all of these licenses mean?

License	Open Science friendly?	Meaning
General Licenses		Learn more here.
CC BY	Yes.	Permits others to use, adapt, and share your work, as long as they credit you as the original creator.
CC0	Yes.	Waives all copyright and related rights in your work, allowing others to freely use, adapt, and share it without any restrictions or requirement to credit you.
CC BY-SA	Kind of.	Allows others to use, adapt, and share your work, provided they credit you and license their adaptations under the same terms.
CC BY-NC	Kind of.	Allows non-commercial use, adaptation, and sharing of your work, provided others credit you.
CC BY-NC-SA	Kind of.	Allows non-commercial use, adaptation, and sharing of your work, as long as others credit you and license their adaptations under the same terms.
CC BY-ND	No.	Allows others to use and share your work, as long as they credit you and do not modify or adapt it.
CC BY-NC-ND	No.	Permits non-commercial use and sharing of your work, as long as others credit you and do not modify or adapt it.
Code Licenses		Learn more here.
MIT	Yes.	Allows others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice and license text.
Apache 2.0	Yes.	Permits others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice, license text, and any required notices for modifications; also grants a patent license.
CC0	Yes.	Waives all copyright and related rights, allowing others to freely use, adapt, and share your code without any restrictions or requirement to credit you.
BSD 2-Clause	Yes.	Allows others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice and license text.
BSD 3-Clause	Yes.	Permits others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice, license text, and do not use your name to promote derived works without permission.
Boost Software License 1.0	Yes.	Allows others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice and license text.
Eclipse Public License 2.0	Yes.	Permits others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they include the original copyright notice, license text, and disclose their source code changes; also grants a patent license.
The Unlicense	Yes.	Relinquishes all copyright and related rights, allowing others to freely use, adapt, and share your code without any restrictions or requirement to credit you.
Mozilla Public License	Kind of.	Allows others to use, modify, and distribute your code, provided they disclose their source code changes and include the original copyright notice and license text.
GNU General Public License 3.0	No.	Requires others to release any work that uses, modifies, or distributes your code under the same GPL 3.0 license (copyleft).
GNU General Public License 2.0	No.	Requires others to release any work that uses, modifies, or distributes your code under the same GPL 2.0 license (copyleft).
GNU General Public License 1.0	No.	Requires others to release any work that uses, modifies, or distributes your code under the same GPL 1.0 license (copyleft).
GNU Affero General Public License 3.0	No.	Requires others to release any work that uses, modifies, or distributes your code, or uses it over a network, under the same AGPL 3.0 license (copyleft).

Licenses for Previously Published Work

In case your Node contains components that have already been published elsewhere, you will need to check the licensing attached to the original component. In certain cases, this licensing won't allow you to publish this component elsewhere. In this case, you can still connect this component as an external link.

If the original component allows for re-publication, there still might be certain conditions under which re-publication is allowed (or not). One of these conditions might be that the re-publication of the components needs to be published under the exact same licensing as the original. Original licenses like CC BY-SA require this.

Sometimes license information for published work is unclear. In these cases, we recommend adhering to the specific publication's policies. Most scientific journals will have their policies stated somewhere on their website. You can also use Sherpa Romeo to determine the permissions policies of most scientific journals.