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SPDX 2.3: LicenseRefs should not be case insensitive #393
Description
According to the spec license expressions case sensitivity section, SPDX license IDs should be treated as case insensitive while LicenseRef's should be considered case sensitive.
Currently, if 2 license refs are found that differ only in case, an error is generated.
This situation should be allowed.
For example:
{
"licenseId": "LicenseRef-BSD-3-clause-GENERIC",
"extractedText": "NOASSERTION",
"name": "BSD-3-clause-GENERIC"
},
[...]
{
"licenseId": "LicenseRef-BSD-3-clause-generic",
"extractedText": "NOASSERTION",
"name": "BSD-3-clause-generic"
},
should be allowed.
The error generated is Analysis exception processing SPDX file: Object URI ...#LicenseRef-BSD-3-clause-generic already exists.
Reacted by Arthit Suriyawongkul
Activity
goneall commentedon Feb 25, 2026
NOTE: This only applies to SPDX 2.3 - In SPDX 3, the entire license expression string is case insensitive.
[-]LicenseRefs should not be case insensitive[/-][+]SPDX 2.3: LicenseRefs should not be case insensitive[/+]goneall commentedon Mar 11, 2026
Since this only applies to version 2.3, I'm going to label this as "won't fix" - if anyone thinks this is a significant issue, please leave a comment.