The achievement of Safe Artificial Intelligence begins with the will of those who want to differentiate their creation. The new SRU license offers a legal framework and the opportunity to make creators’ commitment to their community transparent.

Laying the foundation for secure artificial intelligence.

What is the SRU license

SRU stands for Socially Responsible Use and is a type of license that grants a obligation to the recipient or beneficiary of the license, who is obligated to make socially responsible use of the license.

This obligation is determined by the level of social responsibility that the author or owner of the creative work (the provider) determines that the recipient of the license must comply with.

SRU Levels range from one to four and are preset as described in the topic “SRU Levels”.

At all times, SRU is a legal statement of intent adopted by an individual or entity to ensure that the use of his or her creative work is clearly for the benefit of humanity and not contrary to it. They are general, non-discriminatory, easy to understand and based on the basic principles of equity and justice.

The SRU levels

The level (L) of an SRU License determines the degree of social responsibility required by the owner of the licensed creative work.

Thus, the following 4 levels of SRU have been established:

  • SRU-L1: General license for peaceful purposes.
  • SRU-L2: Special license for CSR companies.
  • SRU-L3: Social integration license.
  • SRU-L4: Social commitment license.

The characteristics of each of them are described below.

SRU-L1 General License for Peaceful Purposes

SRU-L1 is known as the General License for Peaceful Purposes and states that real or virtual persons or entities who are direct or indirect beneficiaries of the licensed product or service may not apply such product or service, or the partial or final results derived from such use, for military purposes of any kind, or for any other warmongering purpose, either directly or indirectly, to the detriment of human beings.

Applies to: Natural or legal persons, virtual or real entities, governmental entities, organizations, companies, associations, groups of persons, individuals or any other entity that makes use of the licensed product or service.

SRU-L2 Social Responsibility Companies

This license (SRU-L2) is an increase of the SRU-L1 by how much it implicitly contains the obligations stated in SRU-L1. Level 2 tacitly states that only those government and business entities that comply with the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact of the United Nations Global Compact can benefit from the licensed product or service.

Applies to: Legal persons, governmental entities, non-governmental organizations, public or private companies, associations or groups of persons with a duly established social role.

SRU-L3 Social Integration

SRU-L3 or Level 3 Social Responsibility. This license is an increase of the SRU-L1 by how much it contains the obligations declared by SRU-L1. This level tacitly states that only those entities that, by virtue of their internal human resource management policies, hire disabled persons on a regular and recurring basis, can benefit from the product or service being licensed.

Applies to: Legal persons, governmental entities, non-governmental organizations, public or private companies, associations or groups of persons with a duly established social role.

SRU-L4 Social Commitment

SRU-L4: Level 4 Social Responsibility. Contains all the obligations declared in the previous levels (SRU-L1, SRU-L2 and SRU-L3).

Applies to: Legal persons, governmental entities, non-governmental organizations, public or private enterprises, associations or groups of persons with a duly established social role.

Characteristics

Below are the key features that an open source distribution under an SRU license must meet:

  • Free redistribution: The SRU license allows free redistribution, that is, it does not restrict either party from selling or delivering the software as an additional component of an aggregated software distribution.

  • Source Code: The program, under the SRU license, must include the unobtrusive source code and must allow distribution in the source code, as well as the compiled form.

  • Derived works: The SRU license allows for modifications and derivative works of the licensed software and such derivative works must be distributed under the same terms as the original SRU license.

  • Non-discrimination: The SRU license does not exclude any person or group of persons understanding that, in diversity, all are equally eligible to contribute to the source code.

  • Effort fields: The SRU license does not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of effort as long as it is not in contradiction with the socially responsible use determined in the license.

  • License Distribution:

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Applicability and use

  • SRU-L1
  • SRU-L2
  • SRU-L3
  • SRU-L4
  • MIT-SRU-L1
  • GLP-SRU-L4

(Work in progress)