Adding RSL to HTTP Headers ​

Web servers can convey RSL license information in HTTP responses using the Link header field. This enables crawlers and client applications to automatically discover and respect licensing terms without manual inspection of HTML or additional configuration.

The Link header field uses the following syntax to associate an external RSL license with HTTP response content:

http
Link: <license-URL>; rel="license"; type="application/rsl+xml"
  • <license-URL> is the absolute URI of the RSL license file.
  • rel="license" indicates that the linked resource is a license for the response content.
  • type="application/rsl+xml" identifies the linked resource as an RSL license file.

This syntax follows the same pattern as the HTML <link rel="license"> element used to add RSL license information to web pages, but communicates the licensing information at the HTTP protocol level.

Example Code ​

Below is an example of how to associate an external RSL license with an HTTP response using the Link header field:

http
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Link: <https://example.com/license.xml>; rel="license"; type="application/rsl+xml"