Resources · Licence~1 minute
You can freely use the texts and code of this site, as long as you credit the source
I wrote this site to start a discussion. That is why I want anyone to be able to take, quote and reuse its ideas, texts and code: journalists, students, institutions, other civic initiatives.
The texts: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
The texts of the site and my own research documents are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
You can:
- copy and share them, in any format;
- adapt them, translate them, build on them;
- use them for any purpose, including commercial purposes.
On one condition only: that you credit the source. For example:
Source: “Statul online”, Andrei Barbu, statulonline.ro, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
If you have changed the text, say so.
The code: European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2)
The code of the site (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, including the demonstration in chapter 5) is published under the European Union Public Licence, version 1.2. The licence has an official version in Romanian.
In short: you can use, study, change and redistribute the code. If you distribute a modified version, you publish it under the same licence or under a compatible one.
The source code will be published in a public repository.
What these licences do not cover
- Legal acts and official texts quoted on the site (laws, decisions, orders). They are not protected by copyright (Romania’s copyright law, Law no. 8/1996, art. 9), so you can use them freely.
- Other people’s materials that the links point to: guides, studies, reports, the documentation of other design systems. They remain under their authors’ licences. On the site I have put links to the sources, not copies.
- The names and symbols of the institutions mentioned on the site. Using them does not mean that these institutions support or endorse the vision.
- Code taken from others, if there is any: it keeps its original licence and copyright notice.
Why these licences
The vision proposes that a state design system should be open: code under EUPL-1.2, documentation under CC BY 4.0. The site uses the same licences.
For specialists
- CC BY 4.0 requires attribution, an indication of changes and a link to the licence. It does not allow additional restrictions.
- EUPL-1.2 is a copyleft licence with a list of compatible licences (including GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, MPL-2.0 and others), which allows combination with other open code. It is the default licence for many European design systems (NL Design System, KoliBri, KERN, gov.cz, ECL).
- MIT-licensed code can be included in an EUPL-1.2 project. MIT allows this, as long as the original copyright notice is kept in the files taken over. This is how, for example, the code of the Republic of Moldova’s design system (MUD) could be reused, without changing the site’s licence.
- I chose EUPL-1.2, not MIT, so that changes to the code stay public. MIT would have allowed the code to be reused without publishing changes.
What I base this on
The links lead to the public versions of my research documents; the section number (§) takes you straight to the paragraph cited.
| Statement | Document | Where |
|---|---|---|
| The licences proposed for a state design system (EUPL-1.2, CC BY 4.0) | The full proposal | §9.3, Anexa C |
| EUPL-1.2, the default European licence | Design systems in Europe | §11 |
| The MIT licence of the MUD code and its reuse | What already exists in Romania | §13 |
| Links, not copies, for third-party materials | What it is based on | the section “The documents” |