Terms & Open Data License
The Hmar Heritage Foundation maintains an open data licensing framework designed to maximize software adoption and educational equity while protecting community archives from commercial exploitation.
Open Data Usage License and Commercial Derivative Works
1.1 Permitted Application Integration: All translation keys, UI and UX glossaries, dictionary databases, and raw text/speech datasets provided by the Foundation are open infrastructure. Open-source maintainers, software developers, commercial corporations, and AI researchers are granted 100% free permission to use, integrate, and build applications upon these resources.
1.2 Prohibited Raw Reselling: Selling, paywalling, licensing, or commercializing raw uncleaned PDF archival scans, dictionary term banks, or raw datasets as standalone paid products or subscription services is strictly prohibited.
1.3 Restructured Derivative Works: If a developer, startup, or researcher performs significant data engineering work—such as cleaning, annotating, structuring, aligning, or instruction-tuning our raw archives into a refined dataset product—they are fully permitted to license or commercialize their restructured derivative work.
- Permitted: Using raw datasets to train commercial AI models or software applications.
- Permitted: Licensing or selling refined derivative datasets where significant data cleaning, alignment, or annotation work has been added.
- Prohibited: Selling or paywalling raw, uncleaned PDF scans or raw datasets directly without adding value.
Copyright Safeguards & Public Domain Archiving
2.1 Public Domain Priority: The Foundation prioritizes digitizing books, manuscripts, and written content that are in the public domain or free of copyright encumbrance.
2.2 Copyright Permissions: For copyrighted works, physical books are collected and cataloged, but high-resolution scanning and public digital archiving proceed only after securing formal written permissions from original authors, publishers, or estate heirs.
2.3 Takedown Protocol: Rights holders who believe a work has been cataloged or archived in error may contact the Foundation directly at daiopch54@gmail.com for prompt review.
Software Locales & Terminology Standards
3.1 Living Recommendations: Technical UI and UX software translation keys and dictionary glossaries provided by the Foundation represent living recommendations. The Foundation acknowledges that language is ever-evolving and no single entity can enforce vocabulary by decree.
3.2 Permissive Licensing: All software translation repositories (in i18n JSON, PO, and XLIFF formats) are distributed under permissive open licenses (Apache 2.0 / Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0).
Limitation of Liability & Public Trust
4.1 As-Is Service Provision: All archives, lookup databases, and dataset repositories are provided on an as-is basis for public educational benefit without commercial warranty.
4.2 Permanent Public Access: All public domain scans and open datasets generated by the Foundation remain permanently accessible to community members, scholars, and future generations.