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Giving a license to your content is an important part of sharing things via Github. Licenses let others know their legal rights to how they can use your content.
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Licenses
Licensing FAQ
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Have a licensing question that isn’t answered here? Contact us, at [email protected].
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This is only a short list of the many open-source licenses that can be used. More in-depth Information on most licenses covered and not covered here can be found at https://opensource.org/licenses{:target="_blank"}.
Note: As a disclaimer, these descriptions should not be taken as legal advice.
(More information found at https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT{:target="_blank"} and https://tldrlegal.com/license/mit-license{:target="_blank"})
One of the most popular licenses, the MIT License is a short, permissive software license. Basically, you can do whatever you want as long as you include the original copyright and license notice in any copy of the software/source. Furthermore, through this license, the author cannot be held liable.
(More information found at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html{:target="_blank"} and https://tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-general-public-license-v2{:target="_blank"})
The GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0 allows you to copy, modify, distribute, commercially use, and place warranties upon projects licensed by it. You can sublicense and use software for private use (ie. not distribute it). You cannot be held liable for any damages caused by your program, unless explicitly stated by you and you cannot use contributors’ names, trademarks, or logos. The original license, as well as any original copyrights, must be included in derived projects. Users must state any significant changes made to the software and include any “NOTICE” file along with it’s contents, if the project contains one. Users may append to this “NOTICE” file. This license is considerable if your project has a patent.
(More information found at https://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0{:target="_blank"} and https://tldrlegal.com/license/apache-license-2.0-%28apache-2.0%29{:target="_blank"})
The Apache License 2.0 is a permissive license. It includes the ability to use the software commercially, modify, distribute, sublicense the software, work on it privately, practice patent claims, as well as place a warranty on the software. Through this license, users cannot hold you accountable for damages and cannot use contributors’ names, trademarks, or logos. In addition to including the license and copyright content in subsequent distributions, users must state significant changes made to the software and include any “NOTICE” file along with it’s contents, if the project contains one. Users may append to this “NOTICE” file. This license is considerable if your project has a patent.
(More information found at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html{:target="_blank"} and https://tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-general-public-license-v3-(gpl-3){:target="_blank"})
The GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 allows you to copy, modify, distribute, commercially use, and place warranties upon projects licensed by it. You can use patent claims. You cannot be held liable for any damages caused by your program, unless explicitly stated by you. Furthermore, you cannot sublicense projects. Copies of the original software or instructions on how to obtain the original software must be included. If the software is an executable, source code must be made available for at least 3 years. The original license, as well as any original copyrights, must be included in derived projects. Any significant changes made to the software must be stated. If the software is part of a consumer device, installation instructions must be included.
(More information found at https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause{:target="_blank"} and https://tldrlegal.com/license/bsd-3-clause-license-%28revised%29{:target="_blank"})
The BSD License 2.0 allows almost unlimited freedom with the software, so long as the BSD copyright and license notice are included. In addition to not holding the owner of the software liable for damages, it also states that the names of the owners of the original software or its members cannot be used to endorse derived products.
A: Typically, when you make a creative work (this includes code), the work is under exclusive copyright by default. This means that, unless a license specifies otherwise, nobody can use, copy, distribute, or modify your work without the risk of take-downs. However, GitHub’s Terms of Service{:target="_blank"} state that public repositories are allowed to be viewed and forked by others. These terms are not sufficient for the kinds of collaboration that people usually seek on a public code host, such as experimentation, modification, and sharing. However, open-source licenses do allow for experimentation, modification, and sharing with few restrictions. While it is typically assumed GitHub projects have an implicit open-source license attached to them, that is not technically the case. This may therefore drive away potential contributors. More information can be found here{:target="_blank"}.
A: While it is not required, it is highly recommended to include one. It’s important to consider the potential consequences of both including and not including an open-source license, and what doing so means for other users who may want to contribute.
A: There are many different, popular open-source licenses that serve unique purposes. While we cannot make that decision for you, we have posted a short list of popular open-source licenses to consider. For more in-depth information on licenses, visit https://opensource.org/licenses{:target="_blank"}. For help on deciding which license to use, visit https://choosealicense.com/{:target="_blank"}.
A: Follow these{:target="_blank"} steps.