Public License Selector

JQuery-powered wizard for choosing data and software licenses. Ships as modular CoffeeScript source with webpack builds for both browser globals (UMD) and modern bundlers (ESM).

Live Demo

Use the selector at https://ufal.github.io/public-license-selector for the most recent build.

Features

Guided questionnaire covering data and software licensing paths, with inline explanations and tooltips.
Searchable license catalogue with badges sourced from src/data/labels.coffee.
History navigation that lets users review and replay previous answers.
Bundled CSS, icon font, and LESS sources to theme the modal.

Decision Flow Visualization

View the auto-generated state graph of the questionnaire:

Full diagram: docs/state-graph.md (renders on GitHub with Mermaid code blocks)

To regenerate after editing src/data/questions.coffee:

npm run generate-graph

Install

The plugin contains a common set of so-called public licenses which will make your work publicly available.

Using npm

npm install @ufal/license-selector

Peer dependencies:

npm install jquery lodash

Tested command:

npm install @ufal/license-selector [email protected] [email protected] --save

Manual

The latest version is in the releases branch.

The plugin requires Lo-Dash or Underscore utility library.

Continue reading for development setup, or skip to Consuming the Bundles to use the published package.

Installation

Clone the repo and install dependencies once:

npm install

Build the distributable bundles:

npm run build     # runs clean + build:umd + build:esm
# or individually
npm run build:umd
npm run build:esm

During development, launch the demo with live rebuilds:

npm start

Webpack serves index.html and watches the CoffeeScript/LESS sources.

Testing

Automated end-to-end tests verify the GitHub Pages deployment after each release:

npm test              # Run tests in headless mode
npm run test:open     # Open Cypress interactive test runner
npm run test:headed   # Run tests with visible browser

Tests cover:

Page load and asset loading (jQuery, lodash, CSS)
Modal auto-open behavior
Questionnaire navigation (Data/Software paths)
License selection and display
Responsive design and accessibility
Performance benchmarks

Consuming the Bundles

From NPM Package

After installing via npm install @ufal/license-selector, the bundles are available in node_modules/@ufal/license-selector/dist/:

File	Description
`license-selector.umd.js`	Browser-friendly UMD bundle exposing `LicenseSelector`. Expects global `jQuery` and `_` (lodash).
`license-selector.esm.js`	Tree-shakeable ESM bundle for modern build pipelines. Expects `jquery` and `lodash` via imports.
`license-selector.css`	Stylesheet + icon font references for the modal UI.

From Local Build

If you cloned the repo and ran npm run build, the same files are in dist/.

UMD Example (Browser)

<link rel="stylesheet" href="node_modules/@ufal/license-selector/dist/license-selector.css">
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.21/lodash.min.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/@ufal/license-selector/dist/license-selector.umd.js"></script>
<script>
  $(function () {
    $('button#pick-license').licenseSelector({
      showLabels: true,
      onLicenseSelected: function (license) {
        console.log('Selected license:', license);
      }
    });
  });
</script>

ESM Example (Webpack/Vite)

import $ from 'jquery';
import _ from 'lodash';
import '@ufal/license-selector/dist/license-selector.css';
import '@ufal/license-selector/dist/license-selector.esm.js';

$('#pick-license').licenseSelector({
  start: 'YourSoftware',
  onLicenseSelected(license) {
    console.log(license);
  }
});

TypeScript Example

import type { LicenseDefinition, LicenseSelectorOptions } from '@ufal/license-selector';

const options: LicenseSelectorOptions = {
  showLabels: true,
  onLicenseSelected: (license: LicenseDefinition) => {
    console.log(license.name, license.url);
  }
};

// jQuery plugin available globally (if loaded via UMD)
const $ = (window as any).jQuery;
$('#pick-license').licenseSelector(options);

From Local Build

dist/ contains everything you need:

File	Description
`license-selector.umd.js`	Browser-friendly UMD bundle exposing `LicenseSelector`. Expects global `jQuery` and `_` (lodash).
`license-selector.esm.js`	Tree-shakeable ESM bundle for modern build pipelines. Expects `jquery` and `lodash` via imports.
`license-selector.css`	Stylesheet + icon font references for the modal UI.

UMD Example

<link rel="stylesheet" href="dist/license-selector.css">
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.21/lodash.min.js"></script>
<script src="dist/license-selector.umd.js"></script>
<script>
  $(function () {
    $('button#pick-license').licenseSelector({
      showLabels: true,
      onLicenseSelected: function (license) {
        console.log('Selected license:' license);
      }
    });
  });
</script>

ESM Example

import $ from 'jquery';
import _ from 'lodash';
import 'dist/license-selector.css';
import 'dist/license-selector.esm.js';

$('#pick-license').licenseSelector({
  start: 'YourSoftware',
  onLicenseSelected(license) {
    console.log(license);
  }
});

jQuery Plugin Options

Option	Type	Default	Notes
`appendTo`	`string \| HTMLElement \| JQuery`	`'body'`	Parent element for the modal root.
`start`	`string`	`'KindOfContent'`	Initial question; see `src/data/questions.coffee`.
`showLabels`	`boolean`	`true`	Toggle license badge rendering.
`licenseItemTemplate`	`function \| JQuery`	`null`	Custom renderer for `<li>` entries.
`licenses`	`Record<string, Partial<LicenseDefinition>>`	`{}`	Deep-merged with `src/data/licenses.coffee`.
`questions`	`Record<string, Function>`	`{}`	Deep-merged with `src/data/questions.coffee`.
`onLicenseSelected`	`function`	`_.noop`	Fires when the user confirms a license.

The TypeScript interface definitions live in index.d.ts and mirror the table above.

Example: Customizing Licenses with `licenses` Option

A list of licenses that will get merged to the predefined licenses. The merge is done by _.merge so you can use it to add new licenses or to change configuration of the predefined licenses.

$('.selector').licenseSelector({
  licenses: {
    'abc-license': {
      name: 'NEW license',
      priority: 1,
      available: true,
      url: 'http://www.example.com/new-license',
      description: 'This is new license inserted as a test',
      categories: ['data', 'new'],
      template: function($el, license, selectFunction) {
        var h = $('<h4 />').text(license.name);
        h.append($('<a/>').attr({
          href: license.url,
          target: '_blank'
        }));
        $el.append(h);
        $el.append('<p>Custom template function</p>');
        $el.append(
          $('<button/>')
            .append('<span>Click here to select license</span>')
            .click(selectFunction)
        );
      }
    },
    'cc-by': {
      description: 'Modified description ...',
      cssClass: 'featured-license'
    },
    'lgpl-3': {
      available: false // hide the LGPL 3 license
    }
  }
});

License Attributes

When customizing licenses via the licenses option, each license object can have the following attributes:

string key - The hash key (will be automatically added)
string name - Full name of the license
bool available - Flag whether the license is visible in the license list
unsigned int priority - Sort priority (lower means higher in the license list)
string url - Url pointing to the license full text
string description - A short description of the license
string cssClass - Custom CSS class set on <li> element
function|jQuery template - Template used for custom format
array[string] categories - A list of arbitrary category names used for filtering in the questions
array[string] labels - A list of labels that will be shown for the license. Each label has a picture or special css style connected.

Available Licenses

List of licenses that can be chosen with default settings.

License name	URL
Affero General Public License 3 (AGPL-3.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0
Apache License 2	http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Artistic License 1.0	http://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-Perl-1.0
Artistic License 2.0	http://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-2.0
Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL-1.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/CDDL-1.0
Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs (CC-BY-ND)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC-BY-NC)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA)	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Eclipse Public License 1.0 (EPL-1.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/EPL-1.0
GNU General Public License 2 or later (GPL-2.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/GPL-2.0
GNU General Public License 3 (GPL-3.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/GPL-3.0
GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License 2.1 or later (LGPL-2.1)	http://opensource.org/licenses/LGPL-2.1
GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License 3.0 (LGPL-3.0)	http://opensource.org/licenses/LGPL-3.0
Mozilla Public License 2.0	http://opensource.org/licenses/MPL-2.0
Public Domain Dedication (CC Zero)	http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Public Domain Mark (PD)	http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
The BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" or "FreeBSD" License	http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause
The BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License (BSD)	http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause
The MIT License (MIT)	http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

Customizing Licenses & Decision Flow

License metadata: src/data/licenses.coffee
Compatibility matrix: src/data/compatibility.coffee
Questionnaire states: src/data/questions.coffee
Tooltip text: src/helpers/explanations.coffee

See docs/extending.md for step-by-step guidance on adding licenses, extending labels, or branching the wizard logic.

Architecture Overview

Module	Responsibility
`src/index.coffee`	Entry point exporting the selector plus bundled data helpers.
`src/core/license-selector.coffee`	Orchestrates modal lifecycle, questions, history, and list state.
`src/core/history.coffee`	Manages the navigation stack and tooltips for previous answers.
`src/core/question.coffee`	Renders prompts, answers, checkbox options, and validation errors.
`src/core/license-list.coffee`	Displays filterable licenses and handles selection state.
`src/core/search.coffee`	Header search input wired to the license list filter.
`src/core/modal.coffee`	Builds the modal shell and handles responsive sizing.
`src/core/tooltip.coffee`	Shared tooltip widget used across the UI.
`src/plugins/jquery.coffee`	Registers the `$.fn.licenseSelector` plugin and merges overrides.
`src/license-selector.less` & friends	Styles for modal layout, typography, and iconography.

Development Workflow

Work inside the CoffeeScript/LESS sources under src/.
Run npm start for hot rebuilds and manual testing against index.html.
Execute npm run build before publishing to refresh the assets in dist/.
Linting is handled via webpack loaders; ensure the dev server logs stay clean.

Legacy Makefile Commands

The orginal Makefile remains functional if you prefer that workflow:

make install # installs dependencies via npm
make run     # starts the demo server
make build   # rebuilds distributable assets

The release helpers (make release, make release-minor, make release-major) are still available for version tagging automation.

Used By

CLARIN DSpace Repositories - deployments across Czechia, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Brazil.
EUDAT B2SHARE.

Using the selector elsewhere? Open an issue or discussion so we can add your deployment.

Contributing

Review docs/extending.md before large changes.
Discuss new features via Github issues/discussions to align on scope.
Run npm run build (and optionally npm start) to verify changes locally.
Submit pull request with clear descriptions of the behaviour affected.

Authors

Pawel Kamocki
Pavel Straňák
Michal Sedlák

Attribution

Descriptions for some licenses taken from (or inspired by) descriptions at tldrLegal.

Disclaimer

This tool does not replace professional legal advice. Consult your legal counsel for authoritative guidance.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 113 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
cypress		cypress
docs		docs
scripts		scripts
src		src
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gitignore		.gitignore
.mversionrc		.mversionrc
.npmignore		.npmignore
Acknowledgment-ReadMe.md		Acknowledgment-ReadMe.md
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
babel.config.json		babel.config.json
bower.json		bower.json
cypress.config.js		cypress.config.js
index.d.ts		index.d.ts
index.html		index.html
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
webpack.config-old.js		webpack.config-old.js
webpack.config.js		webpack.config.js

License

ufal/public-license-selector

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

Public License Selector

Live Demo

Features

Decision Flow Visualization

Install

Using npm

Manual

Installation

Testing

Consuming the Bundles

From NPM Package

From Local Build

UMD Example (Browser)

ESM Example (Webpack/Vite)

TypeScript Example

From Local Build

UMD Example

ESM Example

jQuery Plugin Options

Example: Customizing Licenses with licenses Option

License Attributes

Available Licenses

Customizing Licenses & Decision Flow

Architecture Overview

Development Workflow

Legacy Makefile Commands

Used By

Contributing

Authors

Attribution

Disclaimer

License

About

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Example: Customizing Licenses with `licenses` Option

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