Release history and notes

Sequence based identifiers are used for versioning (schema follows below):

major.minor[.revision]

It is always safe to upgrade within the same minor version (for example, from 0.3 to 0.3.4).
Minor version changes might be backwards incompatible. Read the release notes carefully before upgrading (for example, when upgrading from 0.3.4 to 0.4).
All backwards incompatible changes are mentioned in this document.

0.6.1

2026-04-22

2026-04-11

Added jurisdiction and scope detection for Creative Commons license URLs (e.g., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk → jurisdiction “uk”, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo → scope “igo”).
Added jurisdiction and scope optional fields to LicenceVersion model.
Added prose patterns for CC URLs embedded in text (e.g., “Article under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/”).

2026-04-10

2026-04-04

Improved Creative Commons recognition (additional aliases, versions and IGO variants) and expanded free-text matching.
Enhanced traceability: resolved licences include source line/file info surfaced in explain outputs.
Added integration and trace tests for CC matching and source-line explanations.
Docs updated to reflect traceability and plugin interface changes.

2026-03-27

Major refactoring and data consolidation

This release significantly simplifies the data model and maintenance while preserving full backwards compatibility for the public API.

Merged url_map.json and publishers.json into a single unified aliases/aliases.json file.
- All URL mappings and publisher-specific shorthand aliases are now stored together with rich metadata (including urls arrays and aliases lists).
- Removed separate data/urls/ and data/publishers/ directories (and their parsers).
- Updated all documentation, tests, scripts, and contributing guidelines accordingly.
Simplified internal lookups:
- Consolidated URL handling: LicenceNormaliser now builds a single _vkey_to_url map (version_key → list of URLs) and selects the shortest/cleanest URL for display.
- Alias and URL resolution now use the same AliasParser (which also implements URLPlugin).
- Trace output now consistently points to aliases.json with correct line numbers for both aliases and URLs.
Improved family categorisation:
- Fixed wrongly categorised licences (notably unlicense, wtfpl, and several others now correctly map to public-domain where appropriate).
- Updated fallback logic in _infer_family() and related tests.
Other fixes and cleanups:
- Minor improvements to error handling and DataSourceError wrapping.
- Updated exception hierarchy documentation (kept LicenceNormalisationError for backwards compatibility).
- Cleaned up unused/deprecated references across the codebase.

2026-03-26

2026-03-25

Introduce sub-aliases in aliases.json.
Introduce handy scripts for finding, automatic filling and merging the duplicates.

2026-03-24

2026-03-23

Plugin-based architecture — LicenceNormaliser class accepts plugin CLASSES (not instances) with lazy loading; replaces old module-level globals.
6 plugin interfaces — BasePlugin, RegistryPlugin, URLPlugin, AliasPlugin, FamilyPlugin, NamePlugin, ProsePlugin.
New `BasePlugin.refresh()` — classmethod to fetch/refresh data from upstream URLs; CLI uses parser IDs (spdx, opendefinition, etc.) instead of class names.
Thread-safe singleton — _DefaultNormaliser class with double-checked locking protects the shared LicenceNormaliser instance.
Public `registry_keys()` — LicenceNormaliser.registry_keys() exposes known keys; get_registry_keys() in _cache.py uses it.
URL population fix — inverted URL map (version_key → cleaned_url) ensures LicenceVersion.url is populated for resolved licences.
Removed dead code — deleted _registry.py, parsers/base.py, parsers/__init__.py, and empty DEFAULT_* module globals.
Docs updated — ARCHITECTURE.rst, AGENTS.md, README.rst rewritten to reflect new plugin architecture.

2026-03-21

Architecture rewrite — parser-based pluggable system with 8 parsers loading from JSON data files.
3-level hierarchy — LicenceFamily → LicenceName → LicenceVersion with 11 families including publisher OA/TDM.
New data files — 170+ aliases, 41 prose patterns, 50+ publisher URLs (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, ACS, etc.).
Strict mode — strict=True raises LicenceNotFoundError on unknown licences.
Bug fixes — cc-pdm/cc0 family inference, gpl-3.0+ +-suffix stripping, false-positive prose pattern removed, ALIASES-before-REGISTRY lookup order.
Tests — 386 tests (up from ~80), including 165-case integration matrix.
Docs — AGENTS.md, ARCHITECTURE.rst, CONTRIBUTING.rst rewritten; stale literalinclude targets fixed.

2026-03-17

2026-03-17