Unicode Intellectual Property & Licensing

Q: Are Unicode Consortium products freely licensed?

Yes. Virtually all Unicode products including standards, specifications, data files, and software are made freely available to users worldwide under various licenses and permissions. For further details, see the Unicode Intellectual Property, Licensing & Contribution Policies and the Unicode Terms of Use.

Q: What are the Terms of Use and what do they apply to?

The Unicode Terms of Use govern users’ use of the Unicode website and all Unicode products. Most Unicode standards, specifications, technical reports, and code charts are made freely available to users worldwide subject to certain restrictions on use as set forth in the Unicode Terms of Use. Most data files and software are made freely available without restriction under the free and open-source Unicode License. For further details and exceptions, see the Unicode Intellectual Property, Licensing & Contribution Policies and the Unicode Terms of Use.

Q: What are the Unicode License and what does it apply to?

The Unicode License is a free and open-source license that is very closely based on the highly permissive MIT License. Most Unicode data files and software are released under the Unicode License. For more information, see the Unicode Intellectual Property, Licensing & Contribution Policies.

Q: Is the Unicode License approved by the Open Source Initiative?

Yes, the Unicode License is OSI-approved. For more information, see the Unicode Intellectual Property, Licensing & Contribution Policies.

Q: What are the Linux Foundation SPDX identifiers for the Unicode Terms of Use and Unicode License?

The current Terms of Use do not at this time have an SPDX identifier. The Unicode License v3 has been assigned the SPDX identifier “Unicode-3.0”. SPDX identifiers may change over time; please consult the SPDX License List for updated information.