Licenses

Disclaimer

I am not an attorney. None of this constitutes competent legal advice. None of it.

Free Software Foundation General Public License (GPL)

• Viral license

• Version 2: Used for the Linux kernel and other older software

• Version 3: More commonly used with newer software

"Permissive" Open Source License

• Do what you will (within reason)

• MIT License

• BSD License: "3-clause", "2-clause"

• Apache (v2)

Other Licenses Of Note

• LGPL

• AGPL (v2)

• Perl Artistic License

"Public Domain"

• Attempts to abandon all copyright in the work

  • Perhaps not even legally viable

  • Many "licenses" of questionable utility try to simulate

• Creative Commons provides super-permissive licenses crafted by actual attorneys: these are preferred

• In particular, "CC-0" is as close to Public Domain as makes no difference, but enforceable