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The MIT License is a permissive license that is short and to the point. It lets people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and don’t hold you liable.
jQuery and Rails use the MIT License.
The Apache License is a permissive license similar to the MIT License, but also provides an express grant of patent rights from contributors to users.
Apache, SVN, and NuGet use the Apache License.
The GPL (V2 or V3) is a copyleft license that requires others who modify your code to disclose their changes if they redistribute it in source or binary form. V3 is similar to V2, but adds a restriction restricting use in hardware that forbids software alterations.
Linux and Git use the GPL.
What if none of these work for me or I want to retain all of my rights? More licenses are available.
What if I don't want to choose a license? You don't have to.