Choose an Open Source License

Not sure between MIT, Apache, GPL or MPL? Answer a few questions and compare the options.

Official texts from choosealicense.com · not legal advice

A few questions

What are you licensing?

If someone changes it and shares it, must they share their changes?

Do you want an explicit patent grant?

Should people have to credit you?

Recommended

MIT License best fit

MIT

Short, simple and the most popular: do anything, just keep the notice.

License & copyright notice

ISC License

ISC

Functionally the same as MIT with simpler wording (npm's default).

License & copyright notice

BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License

BSD-3-Clause

Like MIT, plus others can't use your name to promote their product.

License & copyright notice

This helps you pick; it isn't legal advice. For company or commercial decisions, ask a lawyer.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A copyleft license requires derived work to stay under the same license. GPL is strong copyleft; MPL and LGPL are weaker.

Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 for credit, or CC0 to give it away.

Default copyright applies: others can't legally use, copy or modify your code, even on GitHub.

Yes for your own code, but existing releases stay under the old license.