A developer-friendly tool to explore, compare, and integrate software and data licenses. Inspired by choosealicense.com, with added metadata and API access for automation.
The choosealicense.com is a great reference, but it has some limitations:
- It is GitHub-specific, reflecting GitHub’s policy on license visibility and use.
- It limits the number of licenses shown, omitting many OSI-approved or widely-used alternatives.
- It focuses more on encouraging license use than on neutral license comparison.
This repository is intended to provide:
- A more complete and neutral catalog of software and data licenses
- Machine-readable metadata and formats for seamless integration and reuse in tools, websites, and automated systems
- A human-oriented structure that presents license details in a clear and accessible way for both people and tools.
Each license includes a list of rules declared in data/rules.json. These are grouped into three categories:
- Permissions – What the license explicitly allows (e.g., commercial use, modification)
- Conditions – What the license requires (e.g., attribution, share-alike)
- Limitations – What the license prohibits or disclaims (e.g., warranty, liability)
The full set of rules is defined in rules.json. See the complete rule documentation in /docs/RULES.md.
- Code licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.
- Content under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Please check out our Contributing guide for details.
