Do you run a website, tool, or app, and need license info?

For projects like yours, we built a high-availability, public API— enabling fast and easy access for any developer, team, or organization.

Get All Licenses

xml • json • yaml

This route retrieves an array of all the licenses in our database, good for building dropdowns or license-selection areas. If you need more verbose information about all of the licenses at once, we suggest you use the download endpoint.

/licenses

[
    {
        "id": "0bsd",
        "name": "BSD Zero Clause License",
        "url": "https://fairfield-programming.github.io/openlist/licenses/0bsd",
        "since": ""
    },
    {
        "id": "aal",
        "name": "Attribution Assurance License",
        "url": "https://fairfield-programming.github.io/openlist/licenses/aal",
        "since": "2002"
    },
    {
        "id": "abstyles",
        "name": "Abstyles License",
        "url": "https://fairfield-programming.github.io/openlist/licenses/abstyles",
        "since": "1991"
    },
    {
        "id": "adobe-2006",
        "name": "Adobe Systems Incorporated Source Code License Agreement",
        "url": "https://fairfield-programming.github.io/openlist/licenses/adobe-2006",
        "since": "2006"
    },
    {
        "id": "adobe-glyph",
        "name": "Adobe Glyph List License",
        "url": "https://fairfield-programming.github.io/openlist/licenses/adobe-glyph",
        "since": "1997"
    }
]

Get License Information

xml • json • yaml

When you need to retrieve information about a specific license in our database, use this endpoint. The response data will be all of the stored information that we have on the license, for computed data, please use the computed endpoint.

/licenses/:id

{
    "id": "mit",
    "name": "MIT License",
    "creator": [],
    "since": "",
    "description": "The MIT License is an open-source license.",
    "permissions": [
        "distribution",
        "commercial-use",
        "private-use",
        "modification"
    ],
    "conditions": [
        "copyright-notice",
        "license-notice"
    ],
    "limitations": [
        "warranty",
        "liability"
    ],
    "body": "Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>\n\nPermission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of <-<this software and associated documentation files>-> (the \"Software\"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:\n\nThe above copyright notice and this permission notice ?-?(including the next paragraph)?-? shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.\n\nTHE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL <-<THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS>-> BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.",
    "type": "open-source"
}

Get Raw License Data

txt • md • html

This endpoint allows for the retrieval of the license body in a raw form. In this form, any optional parts will be included and parameters will be demarcated as the parameter name surrounded with less than (<) and greater than (>) signs.

/licenses/:id/raw

Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of <-<this software and associated documentation files>-> (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice ?-?(including the next paragraph)?-? shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL <-<THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS>-> BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Get Matchbox Regex

xml • json • yaml

If you need to detect what license a project is using, we offer a labeled list of regex statements– allowing you to match a license to its text (even if it's modified).

/regex