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Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA – definition

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA is a public copyright license published by Creative Commons. The abbreviation means Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike. In practice, it allows a person or organization to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon a work, but only under specific conditions defined by the license text. The user must give attribution, may not use the material for commercial purposes, and must distribute adaptations under the same license.

In mobile robotics, this license is relevant mainly to documentation, CAD files, training materials, simulation assets, datasets, diagrams, and some hardware design files. It is not a software license in the usual ROS or Linux sense. Software in robotics is typically licensed under Apache-2.0, BSD-3-Clause, MIT, GPL, or LGPL. BY-NC-SA can still appear in robotics projects, but mostly around non-code assets. That distinction matters on UGV platforms because a rover stack usually combines code, configuration, firmware, CAD, wiring diagrams, and media, each with different licensing terms.

For teams working with Leo Rover or Raph Rover, the practical meaning is simple: if an asset is released under CC BY-NC-SA, it can often be reused in research, teaching, prototyping, and internal lab work, but commercial deployment, resale, or integration into a paid product may require separate permission from the copyright holder. The ShareAlike clause also affects adapted documentation and design files.

License scope in mobile robotics projects

In robotics, licensing is often mixed at repository or package level. A ROS 2 workspace may contain code under Apache-2.0, meshes under CC BY 4.0, and documentation under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Engineers should therefore evaluate license scope per file or per component, not only per repository.

For UGV development, CC BY-NC-SA is most commonly applied to the following asset classes:

  • mechanical drawings and educational CAD examples
  • renderings, schematics, and assembly guides
  • tutorial text, classroom handouts, and courseware
  • maps, textures, and 3D simulation world assets
  • annotated perception datasets released for research or teaching

It is less suitable for executable ROS 2 nodes, drivers, middleware bindings, or firmware. Open-source robotics code usually needs licenses designed for source code distribution, patent handling, linking, and binary redistribution. Creative Commons itself states that its licenses are not recommended for software, except possibly for software documentation.

Element in a robotics stack Typical license family BY-NC-SA suitability
ROS 2 node source code Apache-2.0, BSD, MIT, GPL Low
URDF meshes and textures CC, proprietary, mixed Medium
Documentation and manuals CC family High
CAD reference models CC, CERN OHL, proprietary Medium
Firmware and kernel drivers GPL, BSD, Apache, vendor EULA Low

What BY, NC, and SA mean in practice

The legal effect of this license depends on its version. The current widely used version is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International, published in 2013 by Creative Commons. In robotics projects, version 4.0 is generally preferable because it is more internationally standardized than older ported versions.

The three core conditions are operationally important for engineering teams:

  • BY – Attribution: you must credit the author, provide the license reference, indicate whether changes were made, and avoid implying endorsement.
  • NC – NonCommercial: the material cannot be used for commercial purposes without additional permission.
  • SA – ShareAlike: if you share adapted material, you must distribute it under the same license or a compatible one designated by Creative Commons.

A concise attribution block for a technical asset can look like this:

"Depth camera mounting bracket model" by Example Author,
licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Changes made: hole spacing modified from 30 mm to 35 mm.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

For a robotics lab, attribution should be stored in a place that survives export and redistribution. Good options include a LICENSES directory, README, package metadata, CAD title block, and dataset manifest.

Why this matters for ROS 2, URDF, and simulation

ROS 2 projects often combine assets that are redistributed through Git repositories, Docker images, and binary packages. When a URDF package includes meshes or textures under CC BY-NC-SA, the code around it may remain open under a software license, but downstream users must still respect the non-commercial and share-alike conditions for those assets.

This is especially relevant for simulation and digital twins. A Gazebo or RViz package may include:

  • URDF or Xacro files
  • STL, DAE, or OBJ meshes
  • material textures
  • maps for navigation testing
  • documentation screenshots and diagrams

If a university team modifies a rover model for a field robotics course and republishes the assets, ShareAlike may require the modified assets to remain under CC BY-NC-SA. If a systems integrator wants to include the same assets in a commercial product demo, the NC clause may block that use unless the rights holder grants a separate commercial license.

Use cases with Leo Rover and Raph Rover

On Leo Rover and Raph Rover, the most realistic BY-NC-SA scenarios involve educational and research materials, not the base navigation stack itself. Both platforms are used in prototyping, teaching, perception experiments, and custom sensor integration. That creates many derivative materials around the robot.

Examples that fit the platform context include:

  • a university lab publishing a Leo Rover workshop manual with wiring diagrams under CC BY-NC-SA
  • a modified camera mast CAD model for Raph Rover shared for non-commercial field research
  • a perception dataset collected from a UGV in agriculture and released for academic benchmarking
  • simulation assets for ROS 2 classes using rover-specific terrain worlds and annotated maps

Examples that require caution include:

  • selling a derivative accessory based on CC BY-NC-SA design files
  • embedding BY-NC-SA training assets into a paid robotics course without checking license compatibility
  • shipping a commercial UGV product bundle with adapted CC BY-NC-SA meshes or manuals

Leo Rover supports ROS 2, commonly through community-maintained integrations, and is often extended with LiDAR, IMU, depth cameras, and GPS modules. Those integrations often generate derivative configuration files, mounts, and course content. Raph Rover, with higher payload capacity, may host larger sensor rigs and custom enclosures. In both cases, the legal status of each derivative artifact should be tracked separately from the robot hardware platform itself.

Compliance checklist for engineering teams

BY-NC-SA is manageable if the project keeps clear provenance records. Problems usually come from missing metadata, copied meshes without attribution, or mixing teaching assets with commercial deliverables.

A practical compliance workflow is shown below:

  • identify whether the asset is code, documentation, data, or design
  • record the exact license version, preferably CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
  • store source URL, author name, and modification history
  • separate non-commercial assets from commercial deliverables in the repository
  • review whether ShareAlike applies to adapted files that are shared
  • obtain separate commercial permission when needed
asset:
  name: "front_lidar_mount.stl"
  author: "Example Author"
  license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0"
  source: "https://example.org/project"
  modified: true
  modifications:
    - "Adjusted mounting hole spacing to fit rover chassis"
  commercial_use_allowed: false

Normative references and standards context

The authoritative source for this license is Creative Commons. The recommended citation is the legal code and the human-readable deed for CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International. For robotics teams, two additional standards-related points matter.

  • ROS package licensing metadata is commonly declared in package.xml. That declaration should match the actual file-level licensing of assets.
  • Mixed-license repositories should document asset boundaries clearly, especially when URDF, meshes, and launch files are bundled together.

Example package metadata:

<package format="3">
  <name>rover_description_assets</name>
  <version>1.0.0</version>
  <description>UGV visual assets and documentation</description>
  <maintainer email="[email protected]">Team</maintainer>
  <license>CC BY-NC-SA 4.0</license>
</package>

Source: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 legal code, 2013, Creative Commons. For ROS metadata conventions, source: ROS package manifest documentation and REP documentation on package structure and metadata conventions.

See also