create-licence

An interactive command-line tool to help developers choose the appropriate open source license through simple questions.

Overview

This package allows you to quickly set up an open source project with the most suitable license based on your preferences. Instead of manually researching different licenses, answer a few simple questions and get a recommendation along with the actual license file.

Quick Start

npm init licence

No installation required! This command will directly run the license recommendation tool.

Features

• Zero Installation: Run directly with npm init licence
• Intuitive Questionnaire: Simple questions to understand your licensing needs
• Multi-language Support: Available in both English and Chinese
• Automatic LICENSE Generation: Automatically creates the recommended license file
• Wide License Support: Supports 10+ popular open source licenses

How It Works

When you run npm init licence, the tool will ask you four key questions:

1. Usage Preferences:

   • Most permissive usage (commercial/proprietary use allowed)
   • Require copyright notice retention
   • Stricter usage restrictions

2. Patent Protection:

   • Whether you want explicit patent licensing
   • Patent concerns importance

3. Derivative Works:

   • Whether derivative works must remain open source
   • Allowing proprietary derivatives

4. Copyright Handling:

   • Completely waive copyright (public domain)
   • Retain copyright

Based on your answers, the tool recommends the most suitable license and can automatically generate the LICENSE file in your project.

Supported Licenses

• MIT: Simple and permissive, requires only copyright notice retention
• Apache-2.0: Permissive with explicit patent grant
• GPL-3.0: Strong copyleft, requires derivative works to be open source
• BSD-3-Clause: Similar to MIT but with non-endorsement clause
• Unlicense: Dedicates work to the public domain

Requirements

• Node.js >= 14.0.0

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues or pull requests to improve this tool.