The Open Directory License is a public copyright license that was used by the Open Directory Project for its content.
Unlike open source licenses, the Open Directory License expressly forbids its applicability to software or open content hosted elsewhere. Time Warner (via the Netscape Communications Corporation) owns the compilation copyright to its unique selection of website listings (links, titles and descriptions) in the open directory on dmoz.org. As a practical matter, this includes the layouts, and the categories, and does not extend to the content Dmoz links to, or the actual links themselves.
The Free Software Foundation describes the ODL as a non-free license, citing the right to redistribute a given version not being permanent, and the requirement to check for changes to the license.
Famous quotes containing the words open, directory and/or license:
“... possibly there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet itwhether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel, at evening, that the day was well worth its fatigues.”
—Lucy Larcom (18241893)
“An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.”
—Donald Sinden (b. 1923)
“All is possible,
Who so list believe;
Trust therefore first, and after preve,
As men wed ladies by license and leave,
All is possible.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?1542)