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This repository contains the XML source and schema files used to generate the authoritative, supported SPDX list file formats, including the web pages you see at spdx.org/licenses and other generated data formats found in the SPDX license-list-data repository.

How we work

We welcome participants and contributions! The SPDX License List is maintained by the SPDX Legal Team. Work and discussion is done via this Github repo, meetings, and the spdx-legal mailing list:

If you are just getting to know the SPDX License List, check out our FAQ

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for ways you can contribute.

SPDX License List

What

The SPDX License List is an integral part of the SPDX Specification. The SPDX License List itself is a list of commonly found licenses and exceptions used in free and open or collaborative software, data, hardware, or documentation. The purpose of the SPDX License List is to enable easy and efficient identification of such licenses and exceptions in an SPDX document, in source files or elsewhere. The SPDX License List includes a standardized short identifier, full name, vetted license text including matching guidelines markup as appropriate, and a canonical permanent URL for each license and exception.

Why

The purpose of the SPDX License List is to enable efficient and reliable identification of such licenses and exceptions in an SPDX document, in source files or elsewhere. The SPDX short identifiers combined with the matching guidelines ensures that anyone can reliably know exactly what license text is being referred to for a given SPDX identifier.

How

When

Consuming License Data from this Repository

Output files in the SPDX license-list-data repository are generated from the XML source in this repository. These output files are stable and well-supported, and make the License List available in RDFa, HTML, text, and JSON formats. You can use SPDX tools (or create your own) to consume the supported formats of the license list.

Please note that the XML format for this repository is internal to the SPDX legal team and is subject to change, so any direct consumers of this repository's source files should expect occasional, backwards-incompatible changes.