The railML schemas have always been protected by a Creative Commons (CC) licence granting free usage of the schema. With the new version of railML – railML3 – the licence will be updated to the most recent CC licence version: Creative Commons Version 4.0. With this railML.org adapts the enhancements made by CC and garanties schema user the same usage rights as in previous years and railML versions. Please note that this licence update only effects railML3. All licences of older railML versions are not effected and remain the same as they were published.

According to Creative Commons dozens of improvements have been made to the licence. However, only the following seems relevant for the railML community:

• A 30-day window to correct license violations is granted. This means that a licensee’s rights are reinstated automatically if the breach is corrected within 30 days of the discovery.

All further changes are listed briefly on the Creative Commons website and in full detail in the Creative Commons wiki.

railML3.1 will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Once a successful certification of the interface has been conducted the license changes to the CC-BY-ND-4.0-License. This allows a commercial usage of the certified railML interface.

Further railML specific information on licencing can be found on the railML.org website. Please note that the licence version is completely independent of the railML Version.