The Verified Source Protocol specification is published as an open standard. Any individual, organisation, or system may implement the protocol, reference the specification, or build upon it without restriction, subject to the terms described on this page.
Specification Licence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
The Verified Source Protocol specification document is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Full licence text: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
What Is Permitted
You are free to
- Use the specification as the basis for implementing the Verified Source Protocol in any system, product, or service.
- Implement the protocol in full or in part, in any technical architecture, without licence fees or approval from the VSP Foundation.
- Redistribute the specification document, in whole or in part, provided the attribution requirement below is satisfied.
- Adapt the specification for commentary, translation, or derivative work, provided the adaptation is clearly distinguished from the original normative text and attribution is given.
- Reference the specification in research, regulatory submissions, standards documents, and implementation guidance.
Attribution Requirement
Where the specification is redistributed or adapted, attribution must be given to the VSP Foundation as the steward of the standard. The canonical URL of the specification — https://vsp.foundation/specifications/vsp/1.0 — must be included in any redistribution.
Suggested attribution: Verified Source Protocol (VSP), Version 1.0. The VSP Foundation. https://vsp.foundation/specifications/vsp/1.0
Critical Clarifications
This licence applies to the specification document only.
The CC BY 4.0 licence governs the specification text. Implementations of the protocol — software, systems, registries, and services built to conform with the VSP — are governed independently by their own developers and are not subject to this licence. The VSP Foundation makes no claim over implementations.
No conformance certification is implied by this licence.
Permission to implement the protocol does not constitute any representation that an implementation is conformant with the specification. Conformance is determined by whether an implementation satisfies the mandatory requirements defined in the normative specification. The VSP Foundation does not certify conformance.
Registry data and entity records are governed independently.
Information stored in registries, entity records, or databases built using VSP-compliant architectures is not subject to this licence. Such data is governed by the policies of the registry operator and the terms agreed between entities and registry operators.
Implementations are not endorsed by the VSP Foundation.
Implementation of the protocol does not constitute endorsement by the VSP Foundation. The Foundation does not maintain a list of approved implementations, endorse vendors, or verify claims of conformance made by third parties.
Intellectual Lineage Notice
The intellectual foundations of the Verified Source Protocol were developed through the Search Sciences™ Research Programme, conducted by Younis Group. This notice is included for attribution purposes and does not affect the open licence terms above. The VSP Foundation maintains the specification as an independent body. Younis Group has no proprietary claim over the protocol or its implementation.