Licenses Catalog

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.

Why This Project Exists

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.

License Rules and Metadata

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.

License

• Code licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.
• Content under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Contributing

Please check out our Contributing guide for details.