Open evidence. Clear boundaries.

English legal text reproduced from the linked source file.

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QUANTUM GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (QGPL)
Version 3.1 Open Evidence Edition
REVIEW DRAFT 2026-10-24

Copyright © 2026 Dr. Šarūnas Grigaliūnas and The Open Reality Initiative.

Draft identifier LicenseRef-QGPL-3.1-draft

This is a proposed, self-contained license text for review. It is not a stable
release, does not replace QGPL v3.0, and does not change any existing grant.
Publishing this draft does not relicense this website, its source, or linked
materials. Each Work requires an explicit application by its rights holder.
No SPDX listing, OSI approval, FSF endorsement, or legal review is claimed.
The draft identifier is a custom license reference, not a registered SPDX ID.

Everyone may copy and distribute this draft verbatim. Proposed amendments may
be shared for review if clearly marked as proposals and not represented as the
canonical QGPL text. Adoption of a later draft or stable version is never automatic.

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Preamble
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QGPL is intended for sharing research data, model outputs, calculations, and
related materials while preserving the freedoms granted by their rights holders.
The apparatus does not establish ownership of every outcome it produces.
Rights, evidence, and scientific truth are different questions.

This draft combines copyleft over applicable rights with post-quantum release
integrity, explicit boundaries between components, minimal disclosure, and
renewable evidence. A valid signature can support a claim about signed bytes.
It does not by itself establish an author's identity, a trustworthy date,
ownership, lawful disclosure, reproducibility, or the truth of a result.

These terms operate only through rights the Licensor may grant. They do not
create property rights in facts or override privacy, confidentiality, or other law.

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Terms and conditions
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0. Definitions

0.1 License means this exact QGPL Version 3.1 review draft dated 2026-10-24.

0.2 Licensor means a person or entity that holds rights in the Work and expressly
offers those rights under this License. You means a recipient exercising those
rights. A publisher cannot grant rights it does not hold or have authority to grant.

0.3 Work means the materials expressly identified by the Licensor as covered,
including Results, datasets, documentation, software, configurations, or model
materials to the extent applicable rights exist in them. A bundle may contain
separately identified materials under other terms.

0.4 Result means an output of measurement, calculation, simulation, inference,
or another procedure, including recorded values and model outputs. The term
describes an object and does not establish that the object is legally protected.

0.5 Apparatus Code means software, scripts, notebooks, configurations, firmware,
or other code used to produce or process Results. A model's weights, its code,
its training inputs, and its outputs are separate components unless expressly
identified as a combined Work within the Licensor's applicable rights.

0.6 Modify means an adaptation or other change to the Work for which permission
from the Licensor is required under applicable copyright, database, or related
rights. Modified Work means a work resulting from such a change. Merely using
a tool or model, training on material, computing a fact, or placing independent
files in one bundle does not by itself establish a Modified Work.

0.7 Distribute means provide a copy of the Work or a Modified Work to another
party, including by download, network transfer, repository, or physical medium.
Private use without providing a copy to another party is not Distribution.

0.8 Evidence Manifest means machine-readable metadata identifying covered
artifacts, applicable license references, the cryptographic evidence supplied,
and its stated limits. A manifest records claims and evidence. It is not itself
an independent determination of ownership, identity, or legal compliance.

0.9 Quantum-Resistant Signature means ML-DSA under FIPS 204, SLH-DSA under
FIPS 205, or a signature scheme and parameter set approved by NIST SP 800-208
when its state management and operational requirements are met. A later NIST
revision or replacement may be used under Section 5.7. A name alone does not
demonstrate correct implementation or validated cryptographic module status.

0.10 Quantum-Resistant Key Establishment means ML-KEM under FIPS 203 or a later
NIST revision or replacement. A hybrid construction combines an identified
quantum-resistant method with an identified classical method using a documented
combiner. Key establishment is distinct from endpoint authentication.

0.11 Renewal Record means a signed record linking prior evidence to renewed
cryptographic evidence without replacing or silently rewriting the prior record.

1. Scope of rights and relationship to law

1.1 Subject to these terms, the Licensor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free,
non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, run, Modify, Distribute, publicly display,
perform, and communicate the Work under copyright and related rights it controls.

1.2 To the extent the Licensor controls applicable database rights, this grant
also permits extraction and reuse of all or a substantial part of the contents
and creation and Distribution of databases incorporating those contents.

1.3 Facts, ideas, and other unprotected material remain available under applicable
law. If an act does not require permission under a right controlled by the
Licensor, this License does not make permission necessary or impose conditions
on that act. No ownership of pure facts is created by a notice or manifest.

1.4 Exceptions and limitations, including fair use or fair dealing where
applicable, are unaffected. This License grants no trademark, privacy, publicity,
data protection, confidentiality, or third-party rights that the Licensor cannot
grant. You remain responsible for the law applicable to Your conduct.

1.5 Materials under other licenses retain their terms. A rights map must identify
them accurately but cannot relicense them or establish compatibility. The mere
inclusion of an independent component does not place it under QGPL.

2. Copyleft and component boundaries

2.1 If You Distribute a Modified Work within the meaning of Section 0.6, You must
offer the rights You control in that Modified Work as a whole under this exact
License and include a copy of these terms. This obligation does not extend to
independent works merely aggregated with it.

2.2 Preserve the permissions granted to downstream recipients. Do not impose
additional legal or technical restrictions on their exercise of those permissions.
Payment for copies, support, or services is permitted if these freedoms remain.

2.3 A license on Apparatus Code or model weights does not automatically attach
to every output. Identify the relevant protected material and applicable rights
before describing an output as a Modified Work. Where no such rights apply,
Section 1.3 governs. Do not claim universal inheritance for AI generations.

2.4 An original rights holder may offer its material under additional licenses.
This License does not authorize a recipient to remove other holders' conditions
or to migrate a Work from QGPL v3.0 without the necessary authority.

3. Notices and provenance

3.1 Keep applicable copyright, license, attribution, and change notices intact,
subject to lawful corrections and the privacy limits in Section 4. Identify any
correction to a retained notice without misrepresenting the original source.

3.2 Mark modifications and their dates. For Results, identify material filtering,
normalization, correction, synthetic generation, or other transformations known
to You that You perform. A concise description or reference is sufficient.

3.3 Do not misrepresent the origin of a Work, the authority of a signer, or the
checks actually performed. Recording a claimed origin is different from proving it.
An unknown fact may be recorded as unknown without inventing supporting evidence.

4. Minimal disclosure and recipient access

4.1 Metadata must use only the information needed to identify artifacts, rights,
keys, and supplied evidence. A human name, email, ORCID, device identifier, raw
prompt, training example, or operational log is not required. An organizational
identifier or pseudonymous key may be used without asserting a verified identity.

4.2 Do not include private keys, access tokens, credentials, or unnecessary personal
data in distributed manifests. A hash, filename, public key, or pseudonym may still
reveal or link information. Do not describe hashing alone as anonymisation.

4.3 These terms do not require disclosure that is unlawful or that You have no
authority to make. Provide a lawful minimal record or omit the affected optional
detail and describe the omission without exposing it. If the mandatory minimum
in Section 5.1 cannot lawfully be supplied, do not Distribute the affected Work
in reliance on this License. Independent permissions and Section 1.3 remain.

4.4 Provide required license and evidence materials to the same recipients with
the same practical availability as the corresponding artifact. Public disclosure
is not required for a lawful transfer to a limited recipient group. Access controls
needed to obey applicable law are not a claim of additional intellectual property.

4.5 Do not use DRM or other barriers to deny a recipient the permissions granted
in the material that recipient lawfully receives. If encryption is used, provide
that recipient a practical means to obtain and exercise those permissions in an
unencumbered copy, subject to applicable law and the scope of the granted rights.

5. Quantum-safe evidence requirements

5.1 For each Distribution, supply an Evidence Manifest, the covered license text,
and at least one verifiable Quantum-Resistant Signature binding the following signed payload
elements together. A multi-artifact payload may cover the entire release.

  (a) An unambiguous artifact identifier, byte length, cryptographic digest, and
      the digest algorithm and parameters for each covered artifact.
  (b) This exact License identifier and a digest of the included license text.
  (c) A rights map identifying which components are offered under this License
      and which identified components have other terms or unresolved rights.
  (d) The signature algorithm and parameter set, corresponding public key,
      key fingerprint and its derivation, and the signed-payload encoding rule.
  (e) The evidence status record described in Section 5.3.

You must not represent unresolved rights as a grant or distribute protected
material in reliance on rights that neither You nor the Licensor may grant.
An unmodified release may be redistributed with its existing compliant evidence
without generating a new key or signature while its signature and digest
algorithms remain permitted by Sections 5.1 and 5.7 at the time of that
redistribution. This does not make the redistributor the original author or
issuer. If the artifact or signed claims change, new evidence must bind those
changes and preserve the known prior provenance.

Use SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA3-256, SHA3-384, or SHA3-512 for artifact and
license digests, or an identified NIST-approved replacement at its approved
output length. A withdrawn or disallowed algorithm is not valid for a new
compliance digest. Retain the actual identifiers in earlier evidence.

5.2 Signed bytes and payload boundaries must be reproducible from the supplied
files. State the exact serialization or canonicalization rule and the fields
excluded or blanked for signature calculation. Detached signatures are permitted.
Specify signature encodings and component ordering where relevant. An external
format specification may implement these requirements but cannot replace them.
No particular toolkit, repository, identity provider, or network service is required.

5.3 The signed evidence status record contains the issuer's declarations when
the payload is finalized. It must distinguish the following independent checks,
identify whose assessment is reported and when it was performed, and mark other
checks as not assessed. These descriptions are not certification or a ranking system.

  (a) Byte integrity and signature verification against the supplied key.
  (b) Issuer trust and any independent basis linking that key to a claimed issuer.
  (c) Time evidence and its source, if any. A signer-entered date is an assertion,
      not an independent timestamp or proof of signing before key compromise.
  (d) Content assessment, such as scientific review, rights review, or reproduction,
      only when actually performed, with its scope and limitations identified.

A successful check in one category must not be represented as success in another.
A signature under a newly supplied key alone is not independent issuer verification.
You may Distribute with issuer, time, or content checks marked not assessed.
Verification of the signature enclosing this record occurs after signing.
If You Distribute a verdict or report of that verification, it must be separate
from the signed record and bound to the artifact or signed-payload digest.
Private checks do not require a separate record. Do not insert a later verdict
into the bytes it purports to verify.
The signed record may describe earlier checks on prior evidence, with that
scope stated, or mark the enclosing signature check as not yet assessed.

5.4 Optional evidence may include independent timestamps, archived key documents,
revocation information, reproduction instructions, or audit statements. State their
provenance, validation policy, and known gaps. Do not claim that an asserted signing
date defeats revocation or compromise without adequate independent evidence.

5.5 Hybrid release signatures may be supplied in addition to the required
quantum-resistant signature. Identify every component and the acceptance policy.
When claiming strict hybrid verification, every declared required component must
pass. A PQ-only recovery result must be labelled as that narrower result rather
than as successful strict hybrid verification.

5.6 If You provide the Work over a network using encrypted transport or
cryptographic key agreement, You must support Quantum-Resistant Key Establishment
or a documented hybrid construction for that transfer. Identify the protocol and
configuration if making a claim of transport assurance. A KEM does not itself
authenticate an endpoint or demonstrate that a particular transfer negotiated it.
This requirement does not make an unsupported claim of fully post-quantum TLS,
nor does it substitute for the release signature required by Section 5.1.

5.7 Use the identified standards and applicable parameter sets for new signatures.
Later NIST revisions or replacements may be used with precise identifiers and
verification instructions. If a scheme or parameter set is withdrawn or disallowed
by its referenced NIST standard, do not use it for new compliance signatures or
rely on an old signature using it as the sole compliance signature for a later
Distribution. Add currently permitted evidence under Section 5.1 before that
Distribution while retaining the prior record as history. Previously distributed
copies and evidence records must retain their actual algorithm identifiers.
A standard reference is not a perpetual security guarantee.

5.8 A Renewal Record is optional unless You separately promise archival maintenance.
When issuing one, identify and hash the prior artifact and evidence, identify the
new algorithms and key, sign the link, and state which earlier checks were actually
performed and which were unavailable or failed. Preserve the prior evidence when
lawful. Do not rewrite dates, erase a failed chain, or describe re-signing after a
break as proof that the artifact existed before that break. Independent time
evidence is needed for such a time claim and has its own validation assumptions.

5.9 This License creates no duty to operate an archive or renewal service forever.
An algorithm's later weakness does not retroactively make a formerly compliant
Distribution a violation. A later Distribution must meet the then-applicable
requirements, whether it reuses still-permitted evidence or supplies a new
compliance signature. Preserve earlier evidence with honest status rather than
presenting it as current proof without assessment.

5.10 License compliance is not a security guarantee, a finding of legal ownership,
scientific truth, consent, model safety, or regulatory compliance. Do not use
QGPL branding, a manifest, or a successful verification result to imply otherwise.

6. Patent license

6.1 Each Licensor grants a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive patent license
under the patent claims it controls that would necessarily be infringed by
exercising the granted rights in its contribution, alone or as included in the
Work it supplies. This grant is subject to termination under Sections 6.2 and 7.

6.2 If You initiate patent litigation alleging that the Work or a contribution
within it infringes a patent, the patent permissions granted to You under this
License terminate on the filing date. No rights in unrelated patents are granted.

7. Termination and restoration

7.1 Permissions granted under this License terminate upon violation of its
applicable conditions. Rights available independently of this License and the
rights of compliant downstream recipients are unaffected.

7.2 If You cease all violations, Your permissions are provisionally restored unless
and until the Licensor explicitly and finally terminates them. This does not
erase liability for an earlier violation or restore patent permissions terminated
under Section 6.2. A correction may include replacement metadata or notice to
recipients when necessary to cure the violation.

8. Disclaimer of warranty

TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE WORK AND SUPPLIED EVIDENCE ARE
PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY,
REPRODUCIBILITY, SECURITY, OR CONTINUED CRYPTOGRAPHIC VALIDITY. THE RISK OF USE
IS WITH YOU. MANDATORY RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE EXCLUDED
ARE UNAFFECTED.

9. Limitation of liability

TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, NO LICENSOR IS LIABLE FOR LOSS OR
DAMAGE ARISING FROM THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE WORK OR
SUPPLIED EVIDENCE, INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGE. THIS EXCLUSION DOES NOT APPLY WHERE LIABILITY CANNOT
LAWFULLY BE EXCLUDED.

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Experimental application notice
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This template is for an expressly chosen review-draft experiment. Do not silently
replace a QGPL v3.0 notice or describe this draft as a stable approved license.
Replace the bracketed placeholders and include the exact draft text.

OPEN EVIDENCE WORK NOTICE
The components identified in [rights-map file] are offered by [rights holder]
under QGPL Version 3.1 Open Evidence Edition, Review draft 2026-10-24.
The exact terms are included in [license file].
The custom reference is LicenseRef-QGPL-3.1-draft.
Cryptographic evidence and its limits are recorded in [manifest file].
Other components retain the separately identified terms.
Unassessed identity, time, rights, or content claims remain unassessed.

End of review draft