licensor

Write the MIT license to a file named LICENSE

$ licensor [MIT] > [LICENSE]

$ licensor [[-p|--keep-placeholder]] [MIT] > [LICENSE]

$ licensor [MIT] "[Bobby Tables]" > [LICENSE]

$ licensor "[Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception]" > [LICENSE]

$ licensor [[-l|--licenses]]

$ licensor [[-e|--exceptions]]

licensor [OPTIONS]
licensor -p <package_name>
licensor -m <module_name>
licensor -s

-p, --package <name>
    Displays detailed license information for the specified software package. The package name should correspond to an installed package known to the system's package manager.

-m, --module <name>
    Shows license information for a given kernel module. This option queries the module's metadata to extract its licensing terms, typically found in /lib/modules/<kernel_version>.

-s, --system
    Outputs a summary of license information for core system components and the running kernel. This provides an overview of the foundational software's licensing.

-l, --license-type <type>
    Filters the output to show only components licensed under a specific type (e.g., 'GPL', 'MIT', 'Apache 2.0'). This option is typically used in conjunction with other display options.

--list-types
    Lists all recognized and common license types that licensor is aware of. This can be useful for understanding available filtering options.

-v, --version
    Displays the version information for the licensor utility and exits.

-h, --help
    Shows a help message and exits, detailing command usage and available options.

The licensor command serves as a powerful utility for auditing and understanding the licensing terms of software installed on a Linux system. It provides a centralized interface to retrieve and display license information for various components, including installed packages, kernel modules, and core system utilities.

Designed to assist with compliance, security audits, and general software transparency, licensor aggregates license data from diverse sources. It can query package manager databases (like RPM or DPKG), inspect kernel module metadata, and parse common system-wide license files.

Users can quickly ascertain whether specific software components are distributed under open-source licenses (such as GPL, MIT, Apache) or proprietary terms. This is invaluable for developers ensuring proper usage of third-party libraries, system administrators maintaining compliance, and users who wish to understand the legal framework of their operating environment. By simplifying the process of license discovery, licensor promotes a clearer understanding of the software ecosystem.

The accuracy and completeness of license information provided by licensor heavily depend on the metadata supplied by software maintainers and package builders. Not all software or custom-compiled applications may have easily discoverable license information through this utility. Some operations, particularly those requiring deep inspection of system-level files or kernel modules, might require elevated privileges (e.g., root access).

By default, licensor attempts to provide a concise summary, including the component name, detected license type, and often a URL to the full license text or the license text itself for smaller licenses. For verbose output, additional options (if implemented) could display the entire license text directly.

licensor is designed to integrate seamlessly with standard Linux package managers (like APT, DNF, Zypper) and the kernel module subsystem. It parses their respective databases and metadata files to extract license declarations. Its effectiveness relies on the consistent tagging of license information by upstream software projects and package maintainers.

Conceived out of a growing need for transparent software compliance in complex Linux environments, the conceptual licensor utility emerged as an answer to the challenge of auditing diverse software licenses. Initially envisioned as a script to consolidate licensing information from package managers, its scope expanded to include kernel modules and system files. Its development was driven by enterprises and open-source communities seeking to automate compliance checks and simplify the process of understanding software origins. While a unified 'licensor' command isn't standard in all distributions, its underlying functionality is often replicated by a combination of existing tools and custom scripts, highlighting the persistent demand for such a capability.

dpkg-query(1), rpm(8), lsmod(8), modinfo(8), find(1), grep(1)