attribution registry

An attribution registry in open source is a maintained, queryable record that links software components (packages, modules, repositories, or files) to their required attribution data: copyright holders, license(s), notice text, and sometimes URLs back to the project or contributors. 

Open‑source licenses (MIT, BSD, Apache, GPL, etc.) typically require that downstream users preserve copyright notices and license terms, which in practice is fulfilled via attribution statements in documentation, about pages, or bundled reports.