LicenseDB is likely the largest collection of software licenses available on Earth and maybe beyond.
LicenseDB is a free and open database of mostly all the software licenses, in particular all the open-source software licenses, with over 2000 curated licenses texts and their metadata.
LicenseDB is built from the ScanCode Toolkit license dataset. ScanCode Toolkit is a leading open source code scanner and license detection engine.
LicenseDB is an essential reference license resource for license compliance and SBOMs. LicenseDB includes all the SPDX and OSI licenses together with an extended curated collection of other licenses and license metadata. These licenses are carefully reviewed and curated and continusouly updated by an open community of contributors.
LicenseDB is available as a web site, an JSON or YAML API and a git repository making it easy to reuse and integrate in tools that need a database of reference software licenses.
The web site is published at: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/ You can search the licenses by name, key and other attributes.
This is updated daily by a GitHub action with updates from scancode-toolkit develop, if any.
The index is available at either:
- as JSON: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/index.json
- as YAML: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/index.yml
The index contains a list of the license keys with key metadata and links to the license details and texts using this license key as an identifier:
- as JSON: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/<license key>.json for instance: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/gpl-2.0.json
- as YAML: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/<license key>.yml for instance: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/gpl-2.0.yml
- as text for the full license text: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/<license key>.LICENSE for instance: https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/gpl-2.0.LICENSE
This index and the static website is also available offline with ScanCode Toolkit as a console script available at configure/install. Sample command:
scancode-license-data --path PATH
This git repository contains the full history of the generated HTML and JSON API documents: https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-licensedb
This git repository contains the original and editable source files: https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-toolit
- for the text of a license and the metadata of a license as YAML frontmatter, for instance at https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-toolit/tree/develop/src/licensedcode/data/licenses/gpl-2.0.LICENSE
- Chat with us at: https://gitter.im/aboutcode-org/discuss
- Report issues or ask questions at: https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-toolit/issues and https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-licensedb/issues
- Visit https://www.aboutcode.org/ for more open source and open data projects.
To re/generate the HTML and API content run the following script:
$ ./etc/scripts/check_commit_run_update.sh
SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0 AND Apache-2.0
https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-licensedb Copyright (c) nexB Inc. and others. ScanCode is a trademark of nexB Inc.
ScanCode LicenseDB data is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0). Some licenses, such as the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, are subject to other licenses. See the corresponding license text for the specific license conditions.
ScanCode LicenseDB software is licensed under the Apache License version 2.0. You may not use this software except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at: http://apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
ScanCode LicenseDB is generated with ScanCode Toolkit. The database and its contents are provided on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. No content from ScanCode LicenseDB should be considered or used as legal advice. Consult an attorney for any legal advice.
Visit https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-licensedb for support.
ScanCode Toolkit is a free Software Composition Analysis tool from nexB Inc. and others. Visit https://github.com/aboutcode-org/scancode-toolit for support and download.