Skip to content
ToolQivo

License Generator

Pick an open source licence and get a LICENSE file with your details.

Developer Tools Reviews Free · no sign-up

Quick Tool Overview

The License Generator sets sixteen open source licences side by side — what each permits, requires and limits — and produces a ready LICENSE file with your name and year, or the official source-file notice where the full text must be copied verbatim.

What it does
Generates a LICENSE file and compares licences
You give it
A licence, your name and the year
You get back
The licence text, or its official notice
Best for
Publishing a repository properly
Developer Tools Free, unlimited use No sign-up Runs in your browser

About the License Generator

Sixteen licences, each with the permissions it grants, the conditions it attaches and the limitations it keeps — set side by side so the choice is made on what the licence actually does rather than on which name is most familiar.

The short permissive licences and Apache 2.0 are reproduced here in full, with your name and year filled in, ready to save as LICENSE. The GNU family, MPL and CC0 are different: they run to tens of thousands of characters and are meant to be copied verbatim from their canonical source, because a licence that has drifted by a word is arguably not that licence any more. For those, this generates the official source-file notice — the part that carries your details — and tells you exactly where the full text comes from.

Key features of the License Generator

Compared on what they do

Permissions, conditions and limitations for each licence, so the choice is made on substance rather than on which name is familiar.

Honest about the long ones

The GPL family, MPL and CC0 must be copied verbatim from their canonical source. The page says so and gives the URL, rather than shipping a text typed from memory.

Source-file notices too

Several licences expect a short header in every file as well as the LICENSE — that notice is generated with your details filled in.

Apache 2.0 in full

Including the appendix, with your name and year substituted into the boilerplate at the bottom.

SPDX identifiers given

The exact string to put in package.json, Cargo.toml or composer.json, which is what tooling reads.

How to use the License Generator

  1. 1

    Compare the licences

    Each one lists what it permits, what it requires of anyone using your code, and what it does not cover.

  2. 2

    Enter your details

    Your name or your company, the year, and the project name where the licence needs it.

  3. 3

    Copy the LICENSE file

    Save it as LICENSE, with no extension, in the root of your repository.

  4. 4

    Add the source notice

    Some licences also expect a short notice at the top of each source file — that is generated too.

Frequently asked questions

Copyright still applies, so by default nobody may copy, modify or distribute it. "Public on GitHub" is not a licence — without one you have technically given visitors permission to view the code and nothing else.

Reviews of the License Generator

What people who use the License Generator think of it. Reviews come from visitors and are posted as written.

No ratings yet

Yours would be the first.

  • 5 0 reviews rated 5 stars
  • 4 0 reviews rated 4 stars
  • 3 0 reviews rated 3 stars
  • 2 0 reviews rated 2 stars
  • 1 0 reviews rated 1 star

Write a review

Used this tool? Your rating helps the next person decide.

Your rating

Plain text only — links, email addresses and HTML are not accepted. Your name and review are shown publicly; nothing else is collected. See the privacy policy.

0 reviews

Newest first

No reviews yet

Be the first to rate the License Generator. It takes half a minute and no account.

Write the first review

More developer tools