# License Finder

[![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/pivotal/LicenseFinder.png)](http://travis-ci.org/pivotal/LicenseFinder)

With bundler it's easy for your project to depend on many gems.  This decomposition is nice, but managing licenses becomes difficult.  This tool gathers info about the licenses of the gems in your project.

## Installation
=====

Add license_finder to your Rails project's Gemfile and `bundle`:

```ruby
gem 'license_finder', :git => "https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder.git"
```

Now, initialize license finder:

```sh
$ bundle exec rake license:init
```

This will create a `config/license_finder.yml` file that lets you configure license finder.
This is where you should add licenses which are allowed on the project, so they will be automatically approved.

## Usage

Once you've whitelisted licenses, you can then tell license finder to analyze your Gemfile:

```sh
$ bundle exec rake license:generate_dependencies
```

This will write out a dependencies.yml and dependencies.txt file in the root of your project.

It will also merge in an existing dependencies.yml file, if one exists (i.e., you've previously run this command
and then edited the resulting file).

### Action Items

Once you've generated a `dependencies.yml` file via the `rake license:generate_dependencies` file, you can tell
License Finder to output a list of dependencies that have non-whitelisted licenses:

```sh
$ bundle exec rake license:action_items
```

This will output a list of unapproved dependencies to the console.

Similarly, `bundle exec rake license:action_items:ok` will return a non-zero exit status if there unapproved dependencies.
You could use this in a CI build, for example, to alert you whenever someone adds an unapproved dependency to the project.


## Usage outside Rails

As a standalone script:

```sh
$ git clone http://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder.git license_finder
$ cd /path/to/your/project
$ /path/to/license_finder/bin/license_finder
```

Optionally add `--with-licenses` to include the full text of the licenses in the output.


## Sample Output

File: `config/license_finder.yml`:

```yaml
---
whitelist:
- MIT
- Apache 2.0
ignore_groups:
- test
- development
```

File: `dependencies.yml`:

```yaml
---
- name: "json_pure"
  version: "1.5.1"
  license: "other"
  approved: false

- name: "rake"
  version: "0.8.7"
  license: "MIT"
  approved: true
```

File: `dependencies.txt`:

    json_pure 1.5.1, other
    rake 0.8.7, MIT

File: `bin/license_finder`:

```yaml
---
json_pure 1.5.1:
  dependency_name: json_pure
  dependency_version: 1.5.1
  install_path: /some/path/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/gems/json_pure-1.5.1
  license_files:
  - file_name: COPYING
    header_type: other
    body_type: other
    disclaimer_of_liability: other
  - file_name: COPYING-json-jruby
    header_type: other
    body_type: other
    disclaimer_of_liability: other
  readme_files:
  - file_name: README
    mentions_license: true
  - file_name: README-json-jruby.markdown
    mentions_license: false
---
rake 0.8.7:
  dependency_name: rake
  dependency_version: 0.8.7
  install_path: /some/path/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/gems/rake-0.8.7
  license_files:
  - file_name: MIT-LICENSE
    header_type: other
    body_type: mit
    disclaimer_of_liability: "mit: THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS"
  readme_files:
  - file_name: README
    mentions_license: true
```

## A note to gem authors / maintainers

For the good of humanity, please add a license to your gemspec!

```ruby
Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  s.name = "my_great_gem"
  s.license = "MIT"
end
```

And add a `LICENSE` file to your gem that contains your license text.