Software Licenses Overview

software_licenses_overview.md

License	Permissions	Consequences	Features	Use Cases
Apache License 2.0	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, patent use, private use	Must include license and copyright notice, state changes	Patent license, trademark use prohibited	Large-scale, commercial software projects
GNU GPL v3.0	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, patent use, private use	Must disclose source, include license and copyright notice, state changes, same license	Strong copyleft, patent license, anti-circumvention provision	Free software projects, ensuring derivative works remain open source
MIT License	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, private use	Must include license and copyright notice	Very permissive, short and simple	Small projects, libraries, or any software where you want minimal restrictions
BSD 2-Clause	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, private use	Must include license and copyright notice	Very permissive, minimal requirements	Similar to MIT, good for academic or research projects
BSD 3-Clause	Same as BSD 2-Clause	Same as BSD 2-Clause, plus cannot use contributors' names for promotion	Additional protection for contributors	Commercial software that wants to use open-source code
Boost Software License 1.0	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, private use	Must include license and copyright notice	Very permissive, doesn't require sharing source code of modifications	Libraries, especially C++ projects
CC0 v1.0 Universal	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, private use	No conditions	Dedicates work to public domain	Data sets, small utility libraries
Eclipse Public License 2.0	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, patent use, private use	Must disclose source, include license and copyright notice	Weak copyleft, patent license	Large-scale projects, especially in Java ecosystem
GNU AGPL v3.0	Same as GPL v3.0	Same as GPL v3.0, plus network use is distribution	Strong copyleft, closes the "ASP loophole"	Server-side software meant to be used over a network
GNU GPL v2.0	Similar to v3.0, but without explicit patent license	Similar to v3.0	Strong copyleft	Older free software projects
GNU LGPL v2.1	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, private use	Must include license and copyright notice, disclose source for LGPL portions	Weak copyleft, allows linking from non-GPL software	Libraries that want to allow use in proprietary software
Mozilla Public License 2.0	Allows commercial use, modification, distribution, patent use, private use	Must disclose source for MPL portions, include license and copyright notice	File-level copyleft, patent license	Mixing proprietary and open source code