ClearlyDefined vs REUSE Tool
ClearlyDefined
clearlydefined.ioREUSE Tool
reuse.softwareSide by side
| Figure | ClearlyDefined | REUSE Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Open Source License Compliance Software | 8.0 (#10) | 7.6 (#19) |
| Purpose | ClearlyDefined is an open source project that crowdsources the gathering, curation, and upstreaming of licensing, security, and other data about free and open source projects. | REUSE provides recommendations and tools to make Free Software licensing easy, comprehensive, unambiguous, and machine-readable. |
| Scope limit | ClearlyDefined assigns unique coordinates to components and allows links between them, but says it is not attempting to solve the identity problem. | REUSE does not check whether a project respects the licenses of its dependencies; that requires different tools and processes. |
Plans
In their own words
ClearlyDefined
ClearlyDefined has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
REUSE Tool
REUSE Tool helps software projects keep their own Free Software licensing information complete and machine-readable. Its command-line tools can download full license texts, add copyright and license details to file headers, and lint projects for problems. It can generate a software bill of materials with a command, while the REUSE API displays ongoing compliance status and can provide a badge and JSON output. Teams can run checks in CI/CD workflows such as Drone, Woodpecker CI, Forgejo Actions, GitHub Actions and Docker-based setups. A pre-commit hook can run linting at each Git commit and stop the commit if it reports an error. Installation options include Debian and Fedora packages, pipx, pip and source; Python 3.10 or newer is required. The tool is free, needs no registration and can be used offline. Its scope does not include checking whether a project complies with the licenses of its dependencies. The source code is GPL-3.0-or-later, documentation is CC-BY-SA-4.0, and some configuration and data files are CC0-1.0.