Request: show a project's licence file link and the date we read it

MetaJecika3 replies

3
JecikaMember#1

There is already a request on this board for the licence to appear in the project page header, and for the cases where the licence has extra conditions to be flagged. This is a smaller, more specific version of it, and it is the one I keep coming back to.

The request. Where a project page shows a licence, put a link to the actual LICENSE file in the repository next to it, and put the date we read it next to that.

Two parts, and they solve different problems.

The link removes the argument. "It says Apache-2.0" and "the file says Apache-2.0 with two conditions" are the same sentence once you can click through to the file. The site already links out to the repository; linking to the file inside it is one more link and it is the one that settles the question.

The date answers the other question: is this licence current? A licence can change, and a page that says "MIT" without saying when it was read is making a claim about a file that may have been replaced. "MIT, read on 2026-10-22" is a smaller claim, and it is a true one.

Why we cannot do it automatically. Reading the file and deciding what it means is a judgement, and the same judgement that put NOASSERTION on 5,792 pages is the reason the header is empty for them. But the link needs no judgement at all. Every repository has a licence file at a known path, and we know the commit we read the metadata at. A link to blob/<commit>/LICENSE is immutable and correct forever.

What I would settle for. The link for every project, no interpretation. The date for every project, no interpretation. And for the two or three dozen popular projects where the licence has conditions, a reviewed note in the same style as the existing one, saying which condition and pointing at the file.

3 replies

Hysen YanStaff#2

This one we can do, and the split you make in the request is the right split.

The link needs no judgement and the date needs no judgement, so both can be automatic and both can be true for all 45,667 projects. We already store the commit the metadata came from, so a link to the file at that commit is immutable.

The reviewed note for the popular projects is a separate, human piece of work, and it is the same list as in the licence-header thread. We will do it by hand, starting with the projects named there and here.

NicholasMember#3

Worth adding the case where there is no licence file, because that is the one where the link is most useful and least obvious.

3,331 of the tracked projects have no licence file at the root. For those the useful link is the repository root, or the file list, so a reader can see for themselves that there is nothing there. "No licence file as of 2026-10-22" is a more useful sentence than a blank field.

TerryRegular#4

In reply to Nicholas (#3)

A date also lets the page age honestly. Right now a licence line is a permanent statement; with a date it becomes a snapshot that is visibly a snapshot, and the next reader knows to check rather than assume.

That is a small change that makes the whole page more honest, not just this field.