Licomp Toolkit

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Licomp Toolkit

Licomp Toolkit … Compatibility without the guesswork

The licomp-toolkit is a Python-based utility designed to evaluate license compatibility between different software components. It serves as a bridge to multiple compatibility resources, allowing developers and legal teams to determine if an inbound license (e.g., a library they want to use) is legally compatible with their project’s outbound license.

Example question with a licomp-toolkit answer

Can I use an inbound component under license LGPL-2.1-or-later AND Apache-2.0 to my program licensed under BSD-3-Clause?

$ licomp-toolkit -of text verify --inbound-license "LGPL-2.1-or-later AND Apache-2.0" --outbound-license "BSD-3-Clause"
outbound:      BSD-3-Clause
inbound:       Apache-2.0 AND LGPL-2.1-or-later
resources:     licomp_osadl, licomp_reclicense
provisioning:  binary-distribution
usecase:       library
compatibility: yes

Introduction

Licomp can be used to help determine if an inbound license is compatible with an outbound license. These compatibility checks need context which is often missing in tools, resources and discussions. The context above must be provided to licomp-toolkit. In short the context is:

• use case - how you use the licensed component
• provisioning - how you provide the component to your user
• modification - if you have modified the component

Who should use licomp-toolkit?

It is particularly valuable for the following roles:

Software Developers and Engineers

• Verify if a new library’s license (e.g., MIT) is compatible with their project’s outbound license (e.g., GPL-2.0-only)

• Execute license compliance checks in your CI/CD

Legal and Compliance Officers

• Review human readable license compliance reports from CI/CD.

• Generate structured data that serves as an audit trail.

Open Source Program Office (OSPO) Managers

• Policy Enforcement: Managers can use the toolkit’s API to build internal dashboards that monitor compliance across repositories.

• Supply Chain Security: It helps ensure that the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for a product is not only accurate but also legally sound.

Product Managers and Release Engineers

Release teams use the toolkit to avoid “legal blockers” that could delay a product launch.

• Distribution Planning: Before a product is shipped in a specific format (like a proprietary binary or a SaaS offering), the toolkit identifies if the inbound licenses permit that specific distribution method.

Architectural overview

Licomp toolkit is using the Licomp api to communicate with the Licomp resources. For a better understanding of Licomp we suggest you read:

• Licomp basic concepts
• Licomp reply format

Licomp resources

Licomp toolkit uses the following compatibility resources using the Licomp api: licomp-hermione, licomp-osadl, licomp-proprietary, licomp-reclicense, licomp-dwheeler and licomp-gnuguide.

Using Licomp Toolkit

Command line interface (brief intro)

If you want to check if the following is compatible:

• outbound license “MIT”
• inbound license “LGPL-2.0-or-later”

$ licomp-toolkit verify -il MIT -ol LGPL-2.0-or-later | jq .summary.results
{
  "nr_valid": "1",
  "yes": {
    "count": 1,
    "percent": 100.0
  }
}

In the above example, licomp-toolkit by default chose:

• usecase library- i.e. the licenses component is used as a library (e.g. linking to it)
• provisioning binary-distribution
• modification is not yet implemented

For more detailed guides to licomp-toolkit, please check out:

• Licomp Toolkit - Command Line Guide
• Licomp Toolkit - Reply Format

Python module

If you want to check if the following is compatible:

• outbound license “MIT”
• inbound license “LGPL-2.0-or-later”

>>> from licomp_toolkit.toolkit import LicompToolkit
>>> licomp_toolkit = LicompToolkit()
>>> compatibilities = licomp_toolkit.outbound_inbound_compatibility("MIT", "LGPL-2.0-or-later", "library", "binary-distribution")
>>> print(str(compatibilities['summary']['results']))
{'nr_valid': '1', 'yes': {'count': 1, 'percent': 100.0}}

For a more detailed guide to the licomp-toolkit Python api, please check out: Licomp Toolkit - Python module

License

Licomp Toolkit is released in GPL-3.0-or-later

Installing Licomp Toolkit

See Installing Licomp Toolkit

What tools use Licomp Toolkit

• SBoM Compliance Toolkit

Sponsors

As part of Automated FOSS License Compliance, Licomp Toolkit is sponsored (2025-2026) by:

About this page

This page was automatically generated from ssh://git@codeberg.org/software-compliance-org/licomp-toolkit/src/branch/main/README.md