Apache2 License Checker

Automated license checker for validating project dependencies for compatible Apache2 licenses.

Use with your project

• Run npm install @bbc/apache2-license-checker --save-dev
• Modify your package.json to include apache2-license-checker as part of your test script

For example:

...
  "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha && npm run check-licenses",
    "check-licenses": "apache2-license-checker"
  },
...

The license checker will fail with an exit code of 1 if there are any problems with the license, and will pass with an exit code of 0 if all checks are ok.

A temporary file licenses.json will be created containing a full license analysis based on output from the license-checker tool. You will probably want to .gitignore this file.

Creating Exceptions

If the license checker throws errors, and you've verified the errors as acceptable risks, then you may want to create an exceptions file in your local project. For example:

license-exceptions.json

{
  "exceptions": {
    "cosmos-deploy@*": {
      "reason": "Not required, acceptable use for BBC internal deployments"
    },
    "[email protected]": {
      "reason": "Public Domain; see: https://github.com/dscape/cycle/"
    },
    "[email protected]": {
      "reason": "MIT License; see: https://github.com/dominictarr/map-stream"
    },
    "[email protected]": {
      "reason": "Public Domain; see https://github.com/faisalman/ua-parser-js"
    }
  }
}

Development

To support

• Check out the code
• Run npm install
• Run npm test

Modify scripts/whitelist.js to allow additional licenses or license combinations.

Modify scripts/exceptions.js to allow specific modules for a given reason.

Please push to a branch and raise a pull request, or fork and do the same.

Example output

In normal usage running npm run check-licenses produces an output similar to:

Acceptable project licenses (uses):
  (MIT AND CC-BY-3.0) (1)
  Apache-2.0 (3)
  BSD-2-Clause (1)
  BSD-3-Clause (1)
  ISC (15)
  MIT (23)
  Unlicense (1)
  WTFPL (1)

Acceptable project license exceptions:
  [email protected]
    Reason: Not required, acceptable use for BBC internal deployments
  [email protected]
    Reason: Public Domain; see: https://github.com/dscape/cycle/
  [email protected]
    Reason: MIT License; see: https://github.com/dominictarr/map-stream

All licenses ok Licensed (46) Exceptions (0) Problems (0)

If there is a problem with the licenses, then expect an output similar to:

Acceptable project licenses (uses):
  Apache-2.0 (3)
  BSD-2-Clause (1)
  BSD-3-Clause (1)
  CC-BY-3.0 (1)
  CC0-1.0 (1)
  ISC (16)
  MIT (25)

Acceptable project license exceptions:
  [email protected]
    Reason: Public Domain; see https://github.com/kemitchell/spdx-exceptions.json

Problems with the licenses for these dependencies:
  [email protected]
    License:     CC0-1.0
    Repository:  https://github.com/shinnn/spdx-license-ids
    Publisher:   Shinnosuke Watanabe
    Url:         https://github.com/shinnn


Licenses not ok Licensed (46) Exceptions (1) Problems (1)