The Linux Foundation’s SPDX workgroup has released its Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) standard 1.1, which claims to offer easy compliance with FOSS licenses incorporating feedback from early adopters.
The new release includes enhanced features and an expanded list of licenses that is being adopted by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and other organisations.
The updates provide a common format for companies and communities to share important data about software license and copyrights, reducing redundant work.
SPDX 1.1 now comes with new optional fields for including license names and cross references to license sites, new comment fields added to capture important facts in the document, license, and file sections and features web access to license data, allowing other websites and tools real-time access to the most recent information.
It also includes an expanded list of licenses, new short form identifiers for all licenses and an easier process for accommodating additional license requests, the company said
The new release supports the open source tools, SPDX Viewer, SpreadsheetToRDF, RDFToSpreadsheet, LicenseRDFaGenerator, which assist users with the production, viewing and validation of SPDX data files.
SPDX Viewer is command line driven Java application that formats a valid SPDX RDF document into a text file for easier viewing.
SpreadsheetToRDF converts a spreadsheet containing SPDX information into a valid SPDX/RDF file, while RDFToSpreadsheetm converts a valid SPDX/RDF file into a spreadsheet.
LicenseRDFaGenerator converts a valid License spreadsheet file into a directory of HTML files to be used on the SPDX website.
