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Licensing

The Monarch Initiative recommends the following licenses for software and data produced by Monarch projects.

Software: BSD 3-Clause

Monarch software repositories should use the BSD 3-Clause License.

This is a permissive license that allows broad reuse while requiring attribution and preventing use of the project name for endorsement. It is widely used in the scientific open-source community and is compatible with most other open-source licenses.

Data: CC0 (preferred) or CC-BY

For data and ontology contributions, Monarch recommends:

  • CC0 1.0 (Public Domain Dedication) — preferred for maximum reusability and interoperability, especially for data that will be integrated across multiple sources.

  • CC-BY 4.0 (Attribution) — an alternative where attribution is important, such as curated datasets or resources where tracking provenance is a priority.

CC0 is preferred because license stacking across dozens of integrated data sources can create compliance burdens that hinder reuse. Public domain dedication removes these barriers while the scientific norm of citation still encourages proper attribution.

Per-Repository Licenses

Individual Monarch repositories may have specific license files that take precedence over these general recommendations. Check the LICENSE file in each repository for the applicable terms.