A permalink for your MIT License

I always forget to add an MIT-license.txt file to my projects, so I wanted to link to a single resource that would always be up to date and would always have my details online.

But why keep this to myself, so it's on github for your fork and pulling pleasure.

Now I can always include http://rem.mit-license.org in all my projects which links rem (the cname) against my copyright holder name Remy Sharp - all stored in the users directory.

Example

The users directory contains a list of files, each representing a host on mit-license.org. As present the file format is very simple, but can be upgraded in future.

Create a new file and give it the name of the CNAME you want (in my case it's rem.json). This file contains a JSON object containing at least a copyright property:

{
  "copyright": "Remy Sharp, http://remysharp.com"
}

Means I can now link to: http://rem.mit-license.org and it will show my license name (note that the date will always show the current year).

In addition to the copyright property, if you want to make a link from the copyright text, you can include a url property:

{
  "copyright": "Remy Sharp, http://remysharp.com",
  "url": "http://remysharp.com"
}

And if you want your license to appear as plain text, just add the format property (currently only txt and html are supported):

{
  "copyright": "Remy Sharp, http://remysharp.com",
  "url": "http://remysharp.com",
  "format": "txt"
}

Finally you can also include a license version target in the JSON file as explained in the next section.

License version targeting

License version targeting allows you to link your MIT license to a specific revision in this project - therefore fixing it permanently to a specific license text.

Though I don't expect the license text to change ever, this is just some extra assurance for you.

Targeting requires the sha from the license commit. This can be specified on the URL (in your permalink) or in the JSON file.

For example: http://rem.mit-license.org/a526bf7ad1 (make sure to view-source) shows an older version of comments inline to the HTML document (compared to the latest version).

This can also be targeted in my JSON file:

{
  "copyright": "Remy Sharp, http://remysharp.com",
  "url": "http://remysharp.com",
  "version": "a526rbf7"
}

Note that if no version is supplied, the latest copy of the LICENSE.html will be displayed with your information included.

Themes

If you've got an eye for design (or like me: not): you can contribute a theme by adding a CSS file to the themes directory. The default theme is simple and clean, but you can add your own as you like.

Current available themes:

• default - preview (by @remy & @raphaelbastide)
• flesch - preview (by @flesch)

To use a theme, add the theme property to your user.json file, for example:

{
  "copyright": "Remy Sharp, http://remysharp.com",
  "url": "http://remysharp.com",
  "theme": "flesch"
}

Formats & URLs

The following types of requests can be made to this project:

• http://rem.mit-license.org/ # HTML, or the default format specified in the json file (currently none specified on rem)
• http://rem.mit-license.org/license.html HTML
• http://rem.mit-license.org/license.txt Text
• http://rem.mit-license.org/a526bf7ad1 a526bf7ad1 version, HTML, or the default format specified in the json file (again, none specified for rem so defaults to HTML)
• http://rem.mit-license.org/a526bf7ad1/license.html a526bf7ad1 version, HTML
• http://rem.mit-license.org/a526bf7ad1/license.txt a526bf7ad1 version, text

Ways to contribute

Aside from code contributions that make the project better, there are a few other specific ways that you can contribute to this project.

Development contributions from:

• remy
• batuhanicoz
• georgebashi
• mathiasbynens

1. Donate domain years

I host the domain with namecheap.com and yearly renewal is $9.69 per year. If you want to contribute a year, send me a message and I'll add the years on.

Of course I'll do my best to continue running the domain and hosting, but this is your change to contribute to the community project.

Domain contributions:

• remy - 2011-2012
• barberboy - 2012-2013
• paulirish - 2013-2014
• batuhanicoz - 2014-2015
• buritica - 2015-2016
• adamstrawson - 2016-2018 (2 years)
• keithamus - 2018-2026 (8 years)

Please note that the whois says 2014 currently, I'm following up with the domain registra to make sure it's renewed for the right amount of time!

2. Hosting

Currently the project is hosted on my own server, and I don't expect my server to go away any time soon, but if a lovely hosting company, like Joyent or Media Temple or someone equally as lovely wants to step in and contribute a simple server to host from - then we'll credit you appropriately and you'll get lots of kudos from the web community for being lovely.

3. A lick of paint

I'm a developer, I seem only capable of grey! If you're a designer and want to contribute a decent lick of paint on the project that would be super. Just create a new theme and send me a pull request.

License

And of course:

MIT: http://rem.mit-license.org