Open Source License Checker 2.0 ReadMe
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1. Introduction
Open Source License Checker 2.0 is a risk management tool for analyzing open source software licenses. It is developed in Java, and is platform independent.
Benefits:
- To support decision making on using external libraries
- To identify source code licenses and conflicts
This software is released under GPL 2.0 license
2. Supported Features
- opening a single source file, or directory from the file system
- opening source packages: zip, jar, tar, tar.gz, tgz
- identifying open source licenses from:
- Java, PHP, and C/C++ source files
- Linux Kernel source file support
- "LICENSE","LICENCE", "LICENSE.TXT", "LICENCE.TXT", and "LICENSING.TXT"
- "COPYING", and "COPYING.TXT"
- indicating the license matching confidence against the original license text
- highlighting the matched license text
- displaying code import references
- - Link to import files (only possible in Java source files)
- displaying the license conflicts:
- local/reference conflicts: source file A cannot import or include source file B due to license reference restriction. (e.g GLP license source file cannot import or include PHP licensed source file.)
- global conflicts: after all licenses in the package have been identified, conflicts between them are checked in all against all basis. This way we are able to identify potential conflicts that are missed because references can’t be followed in all cases.
- filtering source files
- Support Free-form fields:
Licenses can include special tags (like year and copyright holder name) that can contain any text. Tags are defined in the license meta file and they are also inserted in the license text file as an identical string (for example: <year>). During the matching, text inside these locations will be saved and later presented to the user. Free-form field can't be the first or the last word of a license text. Also it's not possible to have two fields in a row (like <year> <name>). In that case, they must be joined together (like <year_and_name>). License match is not interrupted by a free-form field.
- identificating license exceptions, e.g. certain licenses might contain optional additions; for example the Classpath-exception of the GPL.
- identificating forbidden phrases, such as Shareware or Patended), that might indicate legally significant additions to the license text.
- source file print support
- summary and report on the source files in the package
- support both GUI interface and Command line interface
3. Supported Licenses
4. System Requirements
Minimum requirements: JRE version 1.5 or above for all platforms
Note: make sure you have the correct Java runtime environment to start the application:
- Open the command line prompt
- Input "java -version" and verify that your JRE version is 1.5 or above. Please download a newer version of JRE if needed.
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5. Download and Installation
Please download the latest Open Source License Checker application from http://sourceforge.net/projects/oslc/
Unpack the downloaded package. For starting the application see OSLC 2.0 User Manual. The application works on all platforms.
6. How to use OSLC 2.0
See OSLC 2.0 User Manual
7. Bug Reports and Feedback
Bugs and feedback can be reported to us in sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oslc/