FOSSLight Prechecker

License Current python package version. GitHub Repository REUSE status

FOSSLight Prechecker is a tool used to check whether the copyright and license writing rules in source code are properly applied, and to supplement them if necessary.

How to Install

FOSSLight Prechecker can be installed using pip3. It is recommended to install it in a python 3.10 + virtualenv environment.

$ pip3 install fosslight_prechecker



How to Run

FOSSLight Prechecker provides the following four modes, each performing different functions for managing copyright and license information in source code.

  1. lint β€” Check whether the copyright and license writing rules in source code are complied with.
  2. convert β€” Convert sbom-info.yaml into the Fosslight_Report.xlsx format and reflect its contents in the SRC sheet.
  3. add β€” Add copyright, license, and download location information to files that are missing copyright or license information.
  4. download β€” Download the license text of each license specified in the sbom-info.yaml file as individual text files.
$ fosslight_prechecker [Mode] [option1] <arg1> [option2] <arg2>...
  • (For Windows) Using the executable
    • Download fosslight_prechecker_windows.exe from FOSSLight Prechecker - Release. Double-clicking it runs lint mode in that directory; open cmd to run other modes.

How to Run by Mode & Parameters

  • Required parameter : Modes
  • Optional parameter : Options 
 Usage
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    fosslight_prechecker [modes] [options] <arguments>

    πŸ“ Description
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    FOSSLight Prechecker checks and corrects copyright and license writing
    rules in source code. It can lint, add, convert, and
    download license information.

    πŸ“š Guide:  https://fosslight.org/fosslight-guide/prechecker

    πŸ”§ Modes
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    lint (default)         Check copyright and license writing rules compliance
    add                    Add missing license, copyright, and download location
    convert                Convert sbom-info.yaml to FOSSLight-Report.xlsx
    download               Download license text specified in sbom-info.yaml

    βš™οΈ  General Options
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    -p <path>              Path to check (default: current directory)
    -o <file>              Output file name
    -f <format>            Result format (yaml, xml, html)
    -e <pattern>           Exclude paths from checking (files and directories)
                           (only works with 'lint' mode)
                           ⚠️  IMPORTANT: Always wrap in quotes to avoid shell expansion
                           Example: fosslight_prechecker -e "test/" "*.pyc"
    -h                     Show this help message
    -v                     Show version information
    -i                     Don't write log file and show progress bar
    --notice               Print the open source license notice text

    πŸ” Mode-Specific Options
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    lint mode:
      -n                   Don't exclude venv*, node_modules, .*/, and
                           FOSSLight Scanner results from analysis

    add mode:
      -l <license>         Add license name in SPDX format (ex: "Apache-2.0")
      -c <copyright>       Add copyright text (ex: "2015-2021 LG Electronics Inc.")
      -u <url>             Add download location URL(ex: "https://www.sampleurl.com")

    download mode:
      -l <license>         License to be representative license

    πŸ’‘ Examples
    ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    # Lint current directory (check compliance)
    fosslight_prechecker lint

    # Lint specific path with exclusions
    fosslight_prechecker lint -p /path/to/source -e "test/" "node_modules/"

    # Add license and copyright to a file
    fosslight_prechecker add -p test.py -l "GPL-3.0-only" -c "2019-2021 LG Electronics Inc."

    # Add license, copyright, and download location
    fosslight_prechecker add -p src/main.py -l "Apache-2.0" -c "2023 MyCompany" -u "https://github.com/user/repo"

    # Convert sbom-info.yaml to Excel report
    fosslight_prechecker convert -p sbom-info.yaml

    # Download license text
    fosslight_prechecker download -l "MIT"
  • Pattern Matching Guide for the -e option
    • ⚠️ Always use double quotes ("") when entering values.
      • Example) fosslight_prechecker -e "dev/" "tests/"
    • ⚠️ File names and extensions are case-sensitive, so please enter them exactly as intended.



lint mode

  • Result files 
    $ tree
.
β”œβ”€β”€ fosslight_lint_260423_1630.yaml
└── fosslight_log_pre_260423_1630.txt

  • Result output fields
    Depending on the format, the fields written to the result may differ. (Default format: yaml)

    • Compliant: Whether the lint result is compliant (OK or Not OK)
    • Files without copyright: List of files without copyright
    • Files without license: List of files without a license
    • Files without license and copyright: List of files missing both copyright and license
    • Summary
      • Detected Licenses: Licenses detected in the source
      • Files without copyright / total: Count of files without copyright / total file count
      • Files without license / total: Count of files without license / total file count
      • Files without license and copyright / total: Count of files missing both / total file count
      • Open Source Package File: List of sbom-info.yaml or oss-pkg-info.yaml files
      • Tool Info
        • Analysis path: Path that was analyzed
        • OS: OS version on which FOSSLight Prechecker was executed
        • Python version: Python version on which FOSSLight Prechecker was executed
        • fosslight_prechecker version: FOSSLight Prechecker version
    • β€» Items excluded when counting files β€»
      • Hidden files and files inside hidden directories
      • Binary files
      • Files with certain extensions (jar, png, exe, so, a, dll, jpeg, jpg, ttf, lib, ttc, pfb, pfm, otf, afm, dfont, json)
      • Files inside venv and node_modules directories
      • Files listed in .gitignore
      • Untracked files relative to the git repository
      • User-defined excluded paths (`-e` option)
      • Paths in sbom-info.yaml where exclude is True
  • Example 1) Analyze a specific path 
    (venv)$ fosslight_prechecker lint -p /home/tests -o result.yaml
    • Result
           Checking copyright/license writing rules:
          Compliant: Not-OK
          Summary:
            Open Source Package File:
            - convert/sbom-info.yaml
            - lint/sub1/sbom-info.yaml
            Detected Licenses:
            - Apache-2.0
            - GPL-3.0-only
            - MIT
            Files without license / total: 3 / 16
            Files without copyright / total: 3 / 16
          Files without license and copyright:
          - lint/fosslight_lint_260424_1022.yaml
          - lint/fosslight_log_pre_260424_1022.txt
          Files without license:
          - lint/sub1/source_missing_lic.py
          Files without copyright:
          - lint/sub2/source_missing_cop.py
          Tool Info:
            OS: Linux 5.15.0-138-generic
            Analyze path: tests
            Python version: 3
            fosslight_prechecker version: fosslight_prechecker v4.0.8
  • Example 2) Analyze specific files 
    (venv)$ fosslight_prechecker lint -p "src/file1.py,src/file2.py"
    • Result
            [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] Tool Info : fosslight_prechecker v4.0.8
        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] # src/fosslight_prechecker/cli.py
        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] * License: GPL-3.0-only
        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] * Copyright: Copyright (c) 2021 LG Electronics Inc.
        Copyright to add(used in only 'add' mode)", type=str, dest='copyright', default="")

        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] # src/fosslight_prechecker/_result.py
        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] * License: GPL-3.0-only
        [FOSSLIGHT_PRECHECKER] * Copyright: Copyright (c) 2022 LG Electronics Inc.
        Copyright and License Writing Rules in Source Code. : " + RULE_LINK

        Checking copyright/license writing rules:
          Compliant: OK
          Summary:
            Open Source Package File: N/A
            Detected Licenses: N/A
            Files without license / total: 0 / 2
            Files without copyright / total: 0 / 2
          Files without license and copyright: N/A
          Files without license: N/A
          Files without copyright: N/A
          Tool Info:
            OS: Linux 5.15.0-138-generic
            Analyze path:
            - src/fosslight_prechecker/cli.py
            - src/fosslight_prechecker/_result.py
            Python version: 3
            fosslight_prechecker version: fosslight_prechecker v4.0.8



add mode

If a file has no existing copyright or license information, the corresponding information is added for each item.

  • Add copyright and license to files under a specific path
(venv)$ fosslight_prechecker add -p tests/add -c "2025-2026 LG Electronics Inc." -l "GPL-3.0-only" -u "https://www.testurl.com"
  • Add copyright and license to specific files
(venv)$ fosslight_prechecker add -p "tests/add/test_both_have_1.py,tests/add/test_both_have_2.py,tests/add/test_no_copyright.py,tests/add/test_no_license.py" -c "2025-2026 LG Electronics Inc." -l "GPL-3.0-only" -u "https://www.testurl.com"
  • Result 
      # SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright 2025-2026 LG Electronics Inc.
  #
  # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only
  #
  # SPDX-PackageDownloadLocation: https://www.testurl.com

  import os
  from fosslight_util.set_log import init_log



convert mode

  • Result files 
    $ tree
β”œβ”€β”€ fosslight_report_pre_260424_1010.xlsx
└── fosslight_log_pre_260424_1010.txt

Convert OSS information in YAML format to Fosslight Report

  • Analyzes sbom-info.yaml files under the specified path and converts them to an Excel report in Fosslight_Report.xlsx format.
  • If there are multiple YAML files, each file is converted to a separate individual sheet. 
    $ fosslight_prechecker convert -p tests/
  • Result
    • sbom-info.yaml file

      When writing a path in the yaml file, if it starts with a special character ({, }, [, ], &, *, #, ?, |, -, <, >, =, !, %, @), enclose it in double quotes ("").

      libidn:
- version: "1.5"
  source name or path:
  - a.c
  - b.c
  license:
  - "GPL-3.0"
  - "LGPL-2.1"
  download location: "http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libidn"
  homepage: "https://www.gnu.org/software/libidn"
  copyright text: "Copyright (c) 2002-2007, Simon Josefsson"
node-backoff:
- version: "2.5.0"
  source name or path: "src/*"
  license: "MIT"
  download location: "https://github.com/MathieuTurcotte/node-backoff"
  homepage: "https://www.npmjs.com/package/backoff"
  copyright text: "Copyright (c) 2012 Mathieu Turcotte"
  exclude: True
rsync:
- version: "2.6.9"
  source name or path: "test/tool"
  license: "GPL-2.0"
  download location: "https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/src"
  homepage: "http://rsync.samba.org"
- version: "3.1.2"
  source name or path: "test/tool"
  license: "GPL-3.0"
  download location: "https://download.samba.org/pub/rsync/src"
  homepage: "http://rsync.samba.org"
  copyright text:
  - "Copyright (c) 1996 Andrew Tridgell"
  - "Copyright (c) 1996 Paul Mackerras"
  - "Copyright (c) 2003-2015 Wayne Davison"
    • fosslight_report.xlsx file

      FOSSLight Report



download mode

  1. Example: download each license from sbom-info.yaml as a text file 
    (venv)$ fosslight_prechecker download -p tests/
    • Result 
        Successfully downloaded tests/LICENSES/GPL-3.0-only.txt.
  Successfully downloaded tests/LICENSES/MIT.txt.
  Successfully downloaded tests/LICENSES/LGPL-2.1-only.txt.
  Successfully downloaded tests/LICENSES/GPL-2.0-only.txt.
  2. Example: create a representative license file 
    (venv)$ fosslight_prechecker download -p tests/ -l "Apache-2.0"
    • Result 
       Successfully downloaded tests/temp_lic/LICENSES/Apache-2.0.txt.
 # Created Representative License File (tests/temp_lic/LICENSES/Apache-2.0.txt -> LICENSE)