diff --git a/pkgs/data/misc/common-licenses/default.nix b/pkgs/data/misc/common-licenses/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..a0c21b5d900b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/data/misc/common-licenses/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+{ stdenv
+, fetchurl
+, lib
+}:
+
+stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
+  pname = "common-licenses";
+  version = "11.1";
+
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = "http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/b/base-files/base-files_${version}.tar.xz";
+    sha256 = "1i3hgd9vs14k819k441iibcgmi2zavnpqbnppyn2cz70kd830nbm";
+  };
+
+  installPhase = ''
+    mkdir -p $out/share
+    cp -r licenses $out/share/common-licenses
+    cat debian/base-files.links | grep common-licenses | sed -e "s|usr|$out|g" -e "s|^|ln -s |g" | bash -x
+  '';
+
+  meta = with lib; {
+    description = "common-licenses extracted from debian base-files package";
+    homepage = "https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/base-files";
+    license = licenses.gpl2Plus;
+    platforms = platforms.linux;
+    maintainers = [ maintainers.mkg20001 ];
+  };
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 89e316fbcd04..7e37eafe3e48 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -2228,6 +2228,8 @@ in
 
   commitizen = callPackage ../applications/version-management/commitizen {};
 
+  common-licenses = callPackage ../data/misc/common-licenses {};
+
   compactor = callPackage ../applications/networking/compactor { };
 
   consul = callPackage ../servers/consul { };