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AboutCode

What is AboutCode?

AboutCode is a family of FOSS projects designed to uncover metadata about software, such as:

  • Where does the code come from?
  • Which software package does it belong to?
  • What is its license and copyright?
  • Is the code vulnerable, maintained, and well-coded?
  • What are its dependencies, and are there vulnerabilities or licensing issues?

With millions of open source components available, answering these questions is critical.

AboutCode helps ensure that:

Software origin, licensing, and security risks are transparent and manageable — enabling safe and confident reuse of open source software.

We support not only open source software, but also open data generated and curated by our tools.

📌 Note

This repository contains information about AboutCode open source activities, not the actual code.

👉 For source code and tools, please refer to the official website: https://www.aboutcode.org

🔗 Important Links

🧩 Projects

The list of AboutCode projects is now maintained on the official website:

👉 https://www.aboutcode.org

Please visit the website for the most up-to-date and complete list of projects.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Whether you're:

  • Fixing bugs 🐛
  • Adding features 🚀
  • Improving documentation 📚

We’d love your help.

Get Started:

  • Read the CONTRIBUTING.md guide
  • Look for good first issues
  • Join the community chat

📊 AboutCode Data

AboutCode Data defines conventions for structured data exchange across tools.

Examples include:

  • ABOUT files
  • ScanCode Toolkit outputs

This approach supports interoperability with tools like:

  • libraries.io
  • OSS Review Toolkit

📐 Standards and Related Projects

AboutCode is built on and contributes to key industry standards:

🔹 PURL (Package URL)

A universal way to identify software packages across ecosystems.
Originated from ScanCode and progressing toward Ecma standardization.

🔹 VERS (Version Range Specification)

A specification for defining dependency and vulnerability version ranges.
(See VERSION-RANGE-SPEC.rst)

🌍 Related Organizations

  • SPDX – Software Package Data Exchange
  • CycloneDX – BOM standard for supply chain security
  • ClearlyDefined – Improves FOSS licensing clarity

📜 License

  • Apache License 2.0

📢 Code of Conduct

See: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.rst