osilic: OSI License CLI & Python Package

osilic is a Python package and command-line tool for listing, searching, and viewing details of OSI Approved Licenses® using the official OSI API.

Features

• List all OSI Approved Licenses®
• View details for a specific license by SPDX ID
• Search licenses by name
• Automatic suggestions for similar licenses if a license is not found
• Usable as a standalone CLI or as a Python package
• Filter licenses by keywords
• Auto suggest available keywords upon entering wrong keyword filters
• Filter licenses by stewards
• Auto suggest available licenses upon entering wrong stewards filters

Installation

From Pypi index

pip install osilic

Using pip (editable mode for development)

pip install -e .

Or with uv:

uv pip install -e .

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• requests and tabulate Python packages

Usage

CLI

After installation, use the osilic command:

• List all licenses:

  osilic

  

• Show details for a license by SPDX ID:

  osilic gpl-2-0

  

• Search licenses by name (-s):

  osilic -s mit

  

• If a license is not found, the CLI will suggest similar licenses automatically.

• Filter licenses by steward (-w):

  osilic -w zope-foundation

  

• If a license is not found, the CLI will suggest list of stewards to use automatically.

• Filter licenses by keyword (-k):

  osilic -k other-miscellaneous

  

• If a license is not found, the CLI will suggest list of keywords to use automatically.

As a Python Package

You can also use OLC in your own Python code:

from olc.model import license_from_dict, print_licenses_table, print_license_details_table
import requests

resp = requests.get("https://opensource.org/api/license")
licenses = license_from_dict(resp.json())
print_licenses_table(licenses)

API Reference

• List all licenses: https://opensource.org/api/license
• License details: https://opensource.org/api/license/{spdx-id}
• Search licenses: https://opensource.org/api/license?name={search_key}
• Filter licenses by keywords: https://opensource.org/api/license?keyword={filter_keyword}
• Filter licenses by stewards: https://opensource.org/api/license?steward={filter_steward_key}

Reference & Further Reading

• Official OSI API Blog Post: Introducing the New API for OSI Approved Licenses
• For more information on OSI licenses, visit opensource.org.

Development

• Source code: GitHub
• Discusstion: OSI discussion
• Issues and contributions welcome!

License

This project is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) License.

Copyright © 2025 Dinesh R

See LICENSE for details.

Author

• Dinesh R

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a list of all commits and changes.

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For more information on OSI licenses, visit opensource.org.