It’s the NOODL License – Awesome and Amazingly Geeky! 

Abstract

This paper details the development and significance of the Nwulite Obodo Open Data License (NOODL License), a contextual and community-centered open data license designed to address the inequities African researchers and dataset creators face under standard open licensing frameworks. Drawing on extensive engagement with African natural language processing (NLP) researchers, funders, and legal scholars, the paper documents how the NOODL License emerged from lived experiences and structural concerns about fairness, power, and benefit-sharing in the data economy. The paper critiques the “one-size-fits-all” approach of prevailing open licenses and explains how the NOODL License introduces differentiated licensing terms based on users' contexts—especially between users in developing and developed countries. The NOODL project challenges extractive data practices and reclaims agency for African researchers and communities in the governance of their data.

Keywords: Open Data Licensing, Data Justice, African NLP and Dataset Governance