License Information

Joe’s Geography Study Tool

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Licensing

Effective date: August 31, 2026
SPDX license identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later

Joe’s Geography Study Tool (“JGST”) is free software. Its original software source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or, at your option, any later version.

This page explains which parts of the project are covered by the GPL and which materials are governed separately.

TL;DR

1. Software License

Except for files, directories, or materials specifically excluded below or carrying their own license notice, the original software components made available as part of JGST are licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or any later version.

Covered software components include project-authored:

The applicable license is referred to as GPL-3.0-or-later.

The complete, unmodified text of the GNU General Public License version 3 is available on this site.

This page explains the project’s licensing structure. It is not a replacement for the complete GNU General Public License.

The GPL licenses the covered software code but does not grant trademark rights in the JGST name, logo, app icons, or other official branding. Use of that branding is governed by Section 12.

2. Your Rights Under the GPL

Subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License, you may:

The GPL does not require original or modified versions to be distributed free of charge.

When GPL-covered software is distributed, however, recipients must receive the freedoms and corresponding source-code access required by the GPL.

3. Requirements When Redistributing the Software

When you distribute an original or modified version of GPL-covered JGST software, you must comply with the GNU General Public License.

Among other things, this generally requires you to:

  1. preserve applicable copyright and license notices;
  2. provide recipients with the complete corresponding source code, or a GPL-compliant written offer for that source when the license permits such an offer;
  3. provide the source code in the form preferred for making modifications;
  4. identify significant modifications you made;
  5. license the covered work under GNU GPL version 3 or a later version permitted by the original license notice;
  6. include a copy of the complete GNU General Public License;
  7. provide recipients with the same GPL freedoms that you received; and
  8. avoid imposing additional legal or technical restrictions that contradict the GPL.

A fork may change the appearance, wording, features, maps, quizzes, or behavior of the software, provided the fork complies with the GPL and with the separate rules governing excluded materials and official branding.

4. Standard GPL Notice

The following notice applies to the GPL-covered software:

Copyright (C) 2026 J. Etter

Joe's Geography Study Tool is free software: you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.

Joe's Geography Study Tool is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with Joe's Geography Study Tool. If not, see
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Individual contributors retain copyright in their contributions unless they have entered into a separate written copyright assignment.

5. Pronunciation Audio Is Not Covered by the GPL

Pronunciation recordings and other generated speech files are not licensed under the GNU General Public License, unless a particular file expressly states otherwise.

This exclusion applies to:

The GPL applies to the software that loads, selects, plays, or otherwise uses these files. It does not apply to the pronunciation audio files themselves.

The pronunciation files must not be described or represented as:

6. Permission for Pronunciation Audio

To the extent that J. Etter or another JGST rights holder possesses legal rights that may be granted, permission is granted to reproduce and redistribute the covered pronunciation audio files as functional components of JGST or of a modified or forked version of JGST, subject to all of the following conditions:

  1. The audio files must remain associated with a functional geography, education, reference, accessibility, or closely related application.
  2. This licensing notice, or an equivalent notice containing all applicable audio restrictions, must accompany the audio files.
  3. A redistributor must not claim that the audio is licensed under the GNU GPL merely because it is distributed alongside GPL-covered software.
  4. A redistributor must not apply CC0, the Unlicense, a public-domain dedication, a blanket GPL grant, or another more permissive license to the audio files.
  5. The audio files must not be used as input for training a machine-learning or artificial-intelligence model.
  6. The audio files must not be included in a dataset used for training, fine-tuning, developing, testing, evaluating, or improving machine-learning or artificial-intelligence technology.
  7. The audio files must not be used to research or develop a product, model, or service that competes with ElevenLabs where such use is prohibited by the applicable ElevenLabs terms.
  8. The audio files must not be used for unlawful activity or for another use prohibited by the applicable ElevenLabs Terms of Service, Prohibited Use Policy, service-specific terms, or voice-specific restrictions.
  9. A redistributor must pass these restrictions forward to any recipient of the audio files.
  10. No recipient may grant downstream rights in the audio that are broader or more permissive than the rights that recipient received.
  11. No rights are granted in ElevenLabs’ services, software, models, voice models, voice clones, APIs, trademarks, branding, or other proprietary technology.
  12. The files may not be distributed as a standalone voice pack, speech pack, pronunciation library, sample pack, model-training collection, or general-purpose audio collection unless a later written asset license expressly authorizes that distribution.

Reasonable technical changes needed to use the files within JGST or a fork—such as renaming, re-encoding, trimming silence, adjusting volume, or changing file organization—are permitted, provided the resulting files remain subject to this notice.

This is a limited asset permission. It is not an open-source software license or a public-domain dedication.

7. Limits of the Audio Permission

The audio permission grants only those copyright or related rights that the project’s rights holders legally possess and are legally capable of granting.

Nothing in this notice:

Because short, predominantly machine-generated pronunciation recordings may have limited or no independent copyright protection under United States law, this notice should not be interpreted as claiming more copyright than legally exists.

The restrictions in this section are intended to prevent the project from granting broader rights than it received from the audio provider.

Broader standalone reuse or unrestricted relicensing of the pronunciation files requires a later written authorization or a replacement set of audio files with clearly permissive provenance.

8. Human-Recorded or Independently Licensed Audio

Audio that was:

may be governed by different terms.

Any such file should carry a file-specific notice identifying:

A file-specific notice controls over the general pronunciation-audio section when that notice clearly identifies a different and valid source or license.

9. Public-Domain Materials

JGST incorporates maps, flags, geographic data, and other materials obtained from public-domain sources.

The GNU General Public License applies to JGST’s original software code and other protectable project-authored material. It does not create copyright protection for, or restrict the reuse of, material that is already in the public domain.

Public-domain materials included in JGST remain in the public domain. They may be copied, modified, redistributed, and used independently of JGST without complying with the GNU General Public License.

Source and provenance information for public-domain materials may be documented within the project for reference and verification. Such documentation does not place additional restrictions on the public-domain materials.

10. Geographic Names and Factual Information

JGST does not claim exclusive ownership of ordinary geographic names, place names, capital names, boundaries, coordinates, or other factual geographic information merely because that information appears in the application.

Copyright and license notices apply to protectable project code, original presentation, original documentation, protectable arrangements, and separately governed assets—not to facts as such.

Public-domain source materials and factual geographic information remain available for independent use.

11. Contributions

Unless a separate written agreement states otherwise, a person who intentionally submits a software contribution for inclusion in JGST agrees that the contribution may be distributed under:

GNU General Public License, version 3 or any later version.

Contributors must not submit:

Media and data contributions must include sufficient provenance information to determine how they may legally be used and redistributed.

12. Project Name, Logo, and Official Branding

The GNU General Public License grants permission to use, modify, and redistribute the GPL-covered software. It does not grant permission under trademark law to use the project’s name, logo, app icons, or other source-identifying branding for a modified or unofficial version.

For purposes of this section, “JGST Branding” includes:

An official release is a version published by J. Etter or expressly authorized in writing by J. Etter.

Exact, unmodified copies of an official release may retain the JGST Branding, provided that all applicable copyright and licensing notices remain intact and the redistributor does not falsely claim to be the project’s official developer, maintainer, or publisher.

A modified version that is distributed or made publicly available must:

  1. use a product name that is distinct from Joe’s Geography Study Tool and JGST;
  2. replace the official JGST logo, app icons, favicons, and other user-facing JGST Branding with distinct branding; and
  3. not imply that the modified version is published, maintained, sponsored, endorsed, or approved by J. Etter or the official JGST project.

A modified version may truthfully state in plain text that it is based on Joe’s Geography Study Tool, provided that the statement does not imply official status, sponsorship, or endorsement.

Nothing in this section requires the removal of:

Private modifications that are not distributed or made publicly available may retain the JGST Branding.

J. Etter may give written permission for a particular modified version to use some or all of the JGST Branding.

No trademark rights in the JGST Branding are granted except for the limited uses expressly permitted by this section.

13. No Warranty

JGST is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty, to the extent permitted by law.

The GPL-covered software is provided without warranties including, but not limited to:

Separately governed pronunciation audio and public-domain materials are also provided without warranty to the fullest extent permitted by law.

The complete GNU General Public License contains the controlling warranty disclaimer and limitation-of-liability provisions for GPL-covered software.

14. Which Terms Control

The licensing order for project materials is:

  1. A valid file-specific copyright or license notice controls for the identified file.
  2. A separate audio or asset license controls for material expressly excluded from the GPL.
  3. Public-domain materials remain in the public domain and are not governed by the GNU General Public License.
  4. The branding provisions in Section 12 govern the use of the JGST name, logo, app icons, and other source-identifying branding in redistributed versions.
  5. The GNU General Public License, version 3 or later, controls original JGST software not otherwise excluded.
  6. The complete official GNU GPL text controls over any summary or explanation of the GPL appearing on this page.

The most accurate description of the project is:

GNU GPL-licensed free software containing separately governed pronunciation audio and public-domain geographic materials, with official JGST branding reserved for authorized releases.

It should not be described as though every file in the complete distribution is licensed under the GPL or as though a modified version is an official JGST release.