Shaun McCance shaunm@gnome.org 2008-2009 Provide information about the licensing terms of the material. License Information mal_info_license = element license { attribute href { text } ?, attribute * - (mal:* | local:*) { text } *, mal_block + }

The license element can be used to provide information about the licensing terms of the material in a page or section. The href attribute can be used to uniquely identify certain licenses.

Notes

The license element can contain any general block content.

The license element can occur in any info element.

The href attribute can be used to provide a URI which uniquely identifies the license terms.

The license element can have attributes from external namespaces. See for more information on external-namespace attributes.
Processing Expectations

The license is not necessarily displayed on the page in which it appears. Some tools may display license information on a separate informational page or dialog. When it is displayed, its contents are treated as block content.

There is no requirement that the URI href will actually be displayed, or that the href attribute will cause a link to be displayed. If authors wish to ensure that an external resource is linked to, they should add a link into the block content. Processing tools may recognize certain license URIs for special processing. This could be used, for instance, to place a license badge at the bottom of a displayed page for certain common licenses.

Comparison to Other Formats

DocBook contains the more general-purpose legalnotice element, which is frequently used to include licensing terms. The license element is intended mostly for redistribution terms, which are not immediately relevent to most readers. When it is important that readers see certain legal information, authors should provide that information in the main content, possibly on a separate page.