So you want to choose an OSS license. Now what?

This doesn't need to be scary. We compiled a list of three licenses that address what most projects need. You can pick on of these and be on your way, or click the links to dig deeper into picking a license that meets your unique needs.

Ready? Which of the following describes you?

Do whatever with my code

The MIT license is a permissive license that is short and to the point. It lets people do anything with your code with two main stipulations:

• - Include proper attribution
• - The code is provided without warranty of any kind

More like this... Projects that use this: jQuery, Rails

I’m concerned about patents

The Apache license is a permissive license similar to the MIT License, but it provides a patent license for any code that infringes on a contributor’s patents.

More like this... Projects that use this: Apache, SVN, NuGet

You care about reciprocity

The GPL (v2 or v3) requires that folks who modify your code also license their changes under the GPL. V3 is similar to v2, but adds a restriction that doesn’st allow using the software in hardware that doesn’t allow modifying the software.

More like this... Projects that use this: Linux, Git