[License-discuss] OSI Adopts SPDX IDs for License URLs

[Nick Vidal]

Cross posting comment from ferdnyc at
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/2959#issuecomment-4018341555

I wanted to bring up the GPL specifically: I notice that OSI is listing all
of the GPL versions as "GPL-X.Y-only" (and in fact, URLs like
https://opensource.org/license/GPL-3.0-or-later result in a 404 error), but
the license text displayed at https://opensource.org/license/GPL-3.0-only
has a "How to Apply These Terms..." section that includes the "either
version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version." text,
making it appear to be GPL-3.0-or-later.

(In truth, AIUI the FSF doesn't differentiate between GPL-3.0-only and
GPL-3.0-or-later themselves, the difference is in how you choose to apply
the license to your work. But in light of that, calling the license
"GPL-3.0-only" doesn't appear to be correct... it's either just "GPL-3.0",
or it's "GPL-3.0-or-later" (as it allows for the "any later version"
stipulation, or it's BOTH.)

On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 9:16 AM Nick Vidal <nick.vidal at opensource.org>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> The OSI is looking for feedback from the community about an important
> change to the OSI-Approved licenses listed on our website.
>
> We've standardized OSI license URLs using SPDX identifiers, while
> carefully preserving compatibility with the many links that already exist
> across the web and tools.
>
> The full set of OSI-approved licenses continues to be available at:
>
> https://opensource.org/licenses
>
> More details about the update is available here:
>
> https://opensource.org/blog/osi-adopts-spdx-ids-for-license-urls
>
> If you spot any broken links or odd behaviour, please let us know.
>
> Feel free to reach out to us by replying to this mailing list or by
> commenting here:
>
> https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/2959
>
> Thanks,
> Nick
>
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