Provide access to licenses data via an API

[anastas10s-afk]

Details

Current Situation:

• An existing API service is available at api.opensource.org, but it's outdated.
• The main website (on WordPress) will become the new source of truth for license data.
• The old service will be deprecated in favor of a WordPress-powered API.

New API Requirements:

• Served directly from WordPress.
• Publicly available and free to use.
• Should expose all data fields initially.
• Does not need to match the existing API's pattern.
• Preferably served at opensource.org/api (with api.opensource.org redirecting there, if possible).

Technical Assumptions:

• Likely to use a custom post type for license data.
• Looking for a WordPress plugin that can expose a REST API from a custom post type.
• Seeking plugin recommendations that meet this need.

Useful information

List of licenses: https://opensource.org/licenses
Details about license (e.g. https://opensource.org/license/gpl-3-0): https://opensource.org/licenses

[gin0115]

I can see by looking at the existing project that the existing api has a lot of wrappers that it can use.

We could easily setup something like https://opensource.org/api/licenses/gpl3, which does a redirect under the hood and calls https://yourdomain.com/wp-json/licenses/v1/gpl3. There are potential pitfalls here, if anyone tries to create page called api, it might conflict.

If we wanted to serve it from api.opensource.org/licenses/gpl3 but still hold all the data in the main site, we need to either use a proxy to tell the server to redirect that call, or hold it on a small, tiny wp site that only has the license info.

Building it will be pretty simple, we can create the cpt and fields using ACF (already on the site) and then its just a case of handling the redirects for rest endpoints. This would give use the usual very verbose WP Json output, which we will probably need to customise so its more like the existing ones.

The existing API returns something like (fake data!)

[
  {
    "id": "MIT",
    "name": "MIT License",
    "identifiers": [
      {
        "identifier": "MIT",
        "scheme": "SPDX"
      }
    ],
    "links": [
      {
        "note": "Official license page",
        "url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"
      }
    ],
    "other_names": [
      {
        "name": "X11 License",
        "note": "Historical name"
      }
    ],
    "superseded_by": null,
    "keywords": ["permissive", "popular", "osi-approved"],
    "text": [
      {
        "media_type": "text/html",
        "title": "HTML Version",
        "url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Would look like this if we just used wp rest without a custom response

[gin0115]

{
  "id": 1234,
  "date": "2024-03-20T10:00:00",
  "date_gmt": "2024-03-20T09:00:00",
  "guid": {
    "rendered": "https://opensource.org/?post_type=license&p=1234"
  },
  "modified": "2024-03-20T10:00:00",
  "modified_gmt": "2024-03-20T09:00:00",
  "slug": "mit",
  "status": "publish",
  "type": "license",
  "link": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT/",
  "title": {
    "rendered": "MIT License"
  },
  "content": {
    "rendered": "",
    "protected": false
  },
  "excerpt": {
    "rendered": "",
    "protected": false
  },
  "author": 1,
  "featured_media": 0,
  "comment_status": "closed",
  "ping_status": "closed",
  "template": "",
  "meta": {
    "identifiers": [
      {
        "identifier": "MIT",
        "scheme": "SPDX"
      }
    ],
    "superseded_by": null,
    "other_names": [
      {
        "name": "X11 License",
        "note": "Historical name"
      }
    ],
    "text_links": [
      {
        "media_type": "text/html",
        "title": "HTML Version",
        "url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"
      }
    ]
  },
  "license_links": [
    {
      "note": "Official license page",
      "url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"
    }
  ],
  "license_keywords": [
    "permissive",
    "popular",
    "osi-approved"
  ],
  "_links": {
    "self": [
      {
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/license/1234"
      }
    ],
    "collection": [
      {
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/license"
      }
    ],
    "about": [
      {
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/types/license"
      }
    ],
    "author": [
      {
        "embeddable": true,
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/users/1"
      }
    ],
    "version-history": [
      {
        "count": 1,
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/license/1234/revisions"
      }
    ],
    "wp:term": [
      {
        "taxonomy": "license_keywords",
        "embeddable": true,
        "href": "https://opensource.org/wp-json/wp/v2/license_keywords?post=1234"
      }
    ],
    "curies": [
      {
        "name": "wp",
        "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}",
        "templated": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

[gin0115]

(sorry hit the keyboard shortcut to close with comment)

[gin0115]

happy to do the initial work with all the values in the API response and then we can decided where to move it https://opensource.org/api or https://api.opensource.org and what data we remove to keep it more lean

[smaffulli]

My advice is to keep things simple: We already have a CPT for licenses and we don't have to maintain any backward compatibility with the old api.opensource.org service. We also don't want to maintain two websites.

[gin0115]

We seem to have access to all the data via the core WP api, but i will give a cleaner endpoint to call as this is a bit excessive

Click to Show WP JSON

{
"id": 10525,
"date": "2023-10-20T22:53:45",
"date_gmt": "2023-10-20T22:53:45",
"guid": {
  "rendered": "https://opensource.gq/?post_type=license&p=10525"
},
"modified": "2023-10-20T22:53:47",
"modified_gmt": "2023-10-20T22:53:47",
"slug": "icu-license",
"status": "publish",
"type": "license",
"link": "https://opensource.gq/license/icu-license/",
"title": {
  "rendered": "ICU License"
},
"content": {
  "rendered": "\n\u003Cp\u003ECOPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE\u003C/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ECopyright (c) yyyy-yyyy copyright holder\u003C/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E[All Rights Reserved.]\u003C/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EPermission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, provided that the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in all copies of the Software and that both the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.\u003C/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ETHE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR HOLDERS INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.\u003C/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EExcept as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization of the copyright holder.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"syndication-links\"\u003E\u003C/div\u003E",
  "protected": false
},
"excerpt": {
  "rendered": "\u003Cp\u003ECOPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE Copyright (c) yyyy-yyyy copyright holder [All Rights Reserved.] Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated…\u003C/p\u003E\n",
  "protected": false
},
"author": 7919,
"featured_media": 0,
"comment_status": "closed",
"ping_status": "closed",
"template": "",
"taxonomy-steward": [],
"taxonomy-license-category": [],
"class_list": [
  "post-10525",
  "license",
  "type-license",
  "status-publish",
  "hentry"
],
"acf": {
  "version": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "",
    "value_formatted": "",
    "value": "",
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcd8910c9f7",
      "label": "Version",
      "name": "version",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "text",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 0,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "default_value": "",
      "placeholder": "",
      "prepend": "",
      "append": "",
      "maxlength": "",
      "_name": "version",
      "_valid": 1
    }
  },
  "release_date": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "20230816",
    "value_formatted": "20230816",
    "value": "20230816",
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcd8ed2f884",
      "label": "Submission Date",
      "name": "release_date",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "date_picker",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 1,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "relevanssi_exclude": 1,
      "display_format": "m/d/Y",
      "return_format": "Ymd",
      "first_day": 1,
      "_name": "release_date",
      "_valid": 1
    }
  },
  "submission_url": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "http://lists.opensource.gq/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.gq/2023-August/005 393.html",
    "value_formatted": "http://lists.opensource.gq/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.gq/2023-August/005 393.html",
    "value": "http://lists.opensource.gq/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.gq/2023-August/005 393.html",
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_6783hdda5y544gf",
      "label": "Submission URL",
      "name": "submission_url",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "url",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 2,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "default_value": "",
      "placeholder": "",
      "_name": "submission_url",
      "_valid": 1
    }
  },
  "submitter": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "Jeff Johnson",
    "value_formatted": "Jeff Johnson",
    "value": "Jeff Johnson",
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcda3b00451",
      "label": "Submitter",
      "name": "submitter",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "text",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 3,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "default_value": "",
      "placeholder": "",
      "prepend": "",
      "append": "",
      "maxlength": "",
      "_name": "submitter",
      "_valid": 1
    }
  },
  "approval_date": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "20231020",
    "value_formatted": "20231020",
    "value": "20231020",
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcd90c2f885",
      "label": "Approval Date",
      "name": "approval_date",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "date_picker",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 4,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "relevanssi_exclude": 1,
      "display_format": "m/d/Y",
      "return_format": "Ymd",
      "first_day": 1,
      "_name": "approval_date",
      "_valid": 1
    }
  },
  "spdx_identifier": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "\u003Ccode\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis data type is not supported! Please contact the author for help.\u003C/em\u003E\u003C/code\u003E",
    "value_formatted": {
      "display_text": {
        "simple_value_formatted": "ICU",
        "value_formatted": "ICU",
        "value": "ICU",
        "field": {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcfcecb4ab2",
          "label": "Display Text",
          "name": "display_text",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "text",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcfcecb4ab1",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "prepend": "",
          "append": "",
          "maxlength": "",
          "_name": "display_text",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      }
    },
    "value": {
      "field_62fcfcecb4ab2": "ICU"
    },
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcfcecb4ab1",
      "label": "SPDX Identifier",
      "name": "spdx_identifier",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "group",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 5,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "layout": "block",
      "_name": "spdx_identifier",
      "_valid": 1,
      "sub_fields": [
        {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcfcecb4ab2",
          "label": "Display Text",
          "name": "display_text",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "text",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcfcecb4ab1",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "prepend": "",
          "append": "",
          "maxlength": "",
          "_name": "display_text",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "license_steward_version": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "\u003Ccode\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis data type is not supported! Please contact the author for help.\u003C/em\u003E\u003C/code\u003E",
    "value_formatted": {
      "url": {
        "simple_value_formatted": "",
        "value_formatted": "",
        "value": "",
        "field": {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcda4d00452",
          "label": "URL",
          "name": "url",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "url",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcda1400450",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "_name": "url",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      }
    },
    "value": {
      "field_62fcda4d00452": ""
    },
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcda1400450",
      "label": "License Steward Version",
      "name": "license_steward_version",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "group",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 6,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "layout": "block",
      "_name": "license_steward_version",
      "_valid": 1,
      "sub_fields": [
        {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcda4d00452",
          "label": "URL",
          "name": "url",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "url",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcda1400450",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "_name": "url",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "link_to_board_minutes": {
    "simple_value_formatted": "\u003Ccode\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis data type is not supported! Please contact the author for help.\u003C/em\u003E\u003C/code\u003E",
    "value_formatted": {
      "url": {
        "simple_value_formatted": "",
        "value_formatted": "",
        "value": "",
        "field": {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcda6600455",
          "label": "URL",
          "name": "url",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "url",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcda6600453",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "_name": "url",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      }
    },
    "value": {
      "field_62fcda6600455": ""
    },
    "field": {
      "ID": 0,
      "key": "field_62fcda6600453",
      "label": "Link to Board minutes",
      "name": "link_to_board_minutes",
      "aria-label": "",
      "prefix": "acf",
      "type": "group",
      "value": null,
      "menu_order": 7,
      "instructions": "",
      "required": 0,
      "id": "",
      "class": "",
      "conditional_logic": 0,
      "parent": "group_62d0160caa7af",
      "wrapper": {
        "width": "",
        "class": "",
        "id": ""
      },
      "relevanssi_exclude": 1,
      "layout": "block",
      "_name": "link_to_board_minutes",
      "_valid": 1,
      "sub_fields": [
        {
          "ID": 0,
          "key": "field_62fcda6600455",
          "label": "URL",
          "name": "url",
          "aria-label": "",
          "prefix": "acf",
          "type": "url",
          "value": null,
          "menu_order": 0,
          "instructions": "",
          "required": 0,
          "id": "",
          "class": "",
          "conditional_logic": 0,
          "parent": "field_62fcda6600453",
          "wrapper": {
            "width": "",
            "class": "",
            "id": ""
          },
          "default_value": "",
          "placeholder": "",
          "_name": "url",
          "_valid": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  }
},
"_links": {
  "self": [
    {
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/license/10525",
      "targetHints": {
        "allow": [
          "GET"
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "collection": [
    {
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/license"
    }
  ],
  "about": [
    {
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/types/license"
    }
  ],
  "author": [
    {
      "embeddable": true,
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/users/7919"
    }
  ],
  "replies": [
    {
      "embeddable": true,
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=10525"
    }
  ],
  "wp:attachment": [
    {
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=10525"
    }
  ],
  "wp:term": [
    {
      "taxonomy": "taxonomy-steward",
      "embeddable": true,
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomy-steward?post=10525"
    },
    {
      "taxonomy": "taxonomy-license-category",
      "embeddable": true,
      "href": "https://opensource.gq/wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomy-license-category?post=10525"
    }
  ],
  "curies": [
    {
      "name": "wp",
      "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}",
      "templated": true
    }
  ]
}
}

[gin0115]

To show this, its just turning on 1 setting in ACF and then all this data is exposed

[gin0115]

Ive added a version of the API to staging

You can access them directly using the post slug like
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/api/license/blue-oak-model-license

Or you can search for a name using
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/api/licenses?name=blue

You can find all based on keywords (categories)
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/api/licenses?keyword=international

You can find all based on the steward
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/api/licenses?steward=boost

Or just see all
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/api/licenses

We can move this to
https://api.open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/licenses

---

As mentioned in the PR, these are redirects of a sort, so the underlying url is
https://open-source-initiative-development.mystagingwebsite.com/wp-json/osi/v1/licenses?steward=boost

[gin0115]

This is the model of each license, if you want more or less data in here, let me know

[nickvidal]

Hi @gin0115, this looks fantastic, thank you!

I believe we can ship this as is, no need for an API subdomain or backward compatibility with the older API.

We'll be able to gather feedback from the community as well.

[webmink]

I'm very keen that we try to warn existing users of the change before it happens - can we do that please, @nickvidal?

…

On Mon, Jun 16, 2025 at 8:12 PM Nick Vidal ***@***.***> wrote: *nickvidal* left a comment (OpenSourceOrg/dotOrg#199) <#199 (comment)> Hi @gin0115 <https://github.com/gin0115>, this looks fantastic, thank you! I believe we can ship this as is, no need for an API subdomain or backward compatibility with the older API. We'll be able to gather feedback from the community as well. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#199 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKOFE6UPEVKU4VJ7U6IBT33D4JK5AVCNFSM6AAAAAB6ZFZ74OVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDSNZXG44DIMJUGA> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

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[nickvidal]

Indeed @webmink, I believe we should keep the old API running for a few months before turning it off. I'll be announcing the changes over the forum and mailing lists.