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title: Non-Software Licenses
layout: default
permalink: /non-software/
---

Open source software licenses can be also used for non-software works and are often the best choice, especially when the works in question can be edited and versioned as source (e.g., [open source hardware](https://www.oshwa.org/definition/) designs). [Choose an open source license here.](/licenses/)

### Data, media, etc.

[CC0-1.0](/licenses/cc0-1.0/), [CC-BY-4.0](/licenses/cc-by-4.0/), and [CC-BY-SA-4.0](/licenses/cc-by-sa-4.0/) are [open](https://opendefinition.org) licenses used for non-software material ranging from datasets to videos. Note that CC-BY-4.0 and CC-BY-SA-4.0 should [not be used for software](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software).

### Documentation

Any open source software license or open license for media (see [above](#data-media-etc)) also applies to software documentation. If you use different licenses for your software and its documentation, be sure to specify that source code examples in the documentation are also licensed under the software license.

### Fonts

The [SIL Open Font License 1.1](/licenses/ofl-1.1/) keeps fonts open, allowing them to be freely used in other works.

### Hardware

There are the CERN Open Hardware family of licenses: [CERN-OHL-P-2.0](/licenses/cern-ohl-p-2.0/) (Permissive, [MIT](/licenses/mit/)-like), [CERN-OHL-W-2.0](/licenses/cern-ohl-w-2.0/) (Weakly reciprocal, [MPL](/licenses/mpl-2.0/)-like), and [cern-ohl-s-2.0](/licenses/cern-ohl-s-2.0/) (Strongly reciprocal, [GPL](/licenses/gpl-3.0/)-like).  The CERN OHL family is also applicable to HDL source code and programmable hardware such as FPGA bitstreams.

[CC-BY-4.0](/licenses/cc-by-4.0/) and [CC-BY-SA-4.0](/licenses/cc-by-sa-4.0/) are also commonly used for hardware; however they do not grant patent rights which restricts usage of patent-encumbered hardware licensed under them.

If your hardware has accompanying software then be sure to specify a license for the software portion as well as the hardware portion.

### Mixed projects

If your project contains a mix of software and other material, you can include multiple licenses, as long as you are explicit about which license applies to each part of the project. See [the license notice for this site](https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com#license) as an example.