This comparison only coverssoftware licenses which have a linked Wikipedia article for details and which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: theFree Software Foundation, theOpen Source Initiative, theDebian Project and theFedora Project. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, seeList of free-content licences.
FOSS stands for "Free and Open Source Software". There is no one universally agreed-upon definition ofFOSS software and various groups maintain approved lists of licenses. TheOpen Source Initiative (OSI) is one such organization keeping a list of open-source licenses.[1] TheFree Software Foundation (FSF) maintains a list of what it considers free.[2] FSF'sfree software and OSI'sopen-source licenses together are calledFOSS licenses. There are licenses accepted by the OSI which are not free as per theFree Software Definition. TheOpen Source Definition allows for further restrictions like price, type of contribution and origin of the contribution, e.g. the case of the NASA Open Source Agreement, which requires the code to be "original" work.[3][4] The OSI does not endorse FSF license analysis (interpretation) as per their disclaimer.[5]
The FSF's Free Software Definition focuses on the user's unrestricted rights to use a program, to study and modify it, to copy it, and to redistribute it for any purpose, which are considered by the FSF thefour essential freedoms.[6][7] The OSI's open-source criteria focuses on the availability of thesource code and the advantages of an unrestricted and community driven development model.[8] Yet, many FOSS licenses, like the Apache License, and all Free Software licenses allow commercial use of FOSS components.[9]
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For a simpler comparison across the most common licenses seefree-software license comparison.
The following table compares various features of each license and is a general guide to the terms and conditions of each license, based on seven subjects or categories. Recent tools like the European Commissions' Joinup Licensing Assistant,[10] makes possible the licenses selection and comparison based on more than 40 subjects or categories, with access to theirSPDX identifier and full text. The table below lists the permissions and limitations regarding the following subjects:
In this table, "permissive" means the software has minimal restrictions on how it can be used, modified, and redistributed, usually including a warranty disclaimer. "Copyleft" means the software requires that its source code be made publicly available and that all provisions in the license be preserved in derivative works.
| License | Author | Latest version | Publication date | Linking | Distribution | Modification | Patent grant | Private use | Sublicensing | TM grant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academic Free License[11] | Lawrence E. Rosen | 3.0 | 2002 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Yes | Yes | Permissive | No |
| Affero General Public License | Affero Inc | 3.0 | 2007 | Copylefted[12] | Copyleft except for theGNU AGPL[13] | Copyleft[13] | ? | Yes[13] | ? | ? |
| Apache License | Apache Software Foundation | 2.0 | 2004 | Permissive[14] | Permissive[14] | Permissive[14] | Yes[14] | Yes[14] | Permissive[14] | No[14] |
| Apple Public Source License | Apple Computer | 2.0 | August 6, 2003 | Permissive | ? | Limited | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Artistic License | Larry Wall | 2.0 | 2000 | With restrictions | With restrictions | With restrictions | No | Permissive | With restrictions | No |
| Beerware | Poul-Henning Kamp | 42 | 1998[a] | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | No | Permissive | Permissive | No |
| BSD License | Regents of the University of California | 3.0 | ? | Permissive[15] | Permissive[15] | Permissive[15] | Manually[15] | Yes[15] | Permissive[15] | Manually[15] |
| Boost Software License | Devin Smith[16] | 1.0 | August 17, 2003 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | No | Permissive | With restrictions | No |
| Creative Commons Zero | Creative Commons | 1.0 | 2009 | Public Domain[17][18] | Public Domain | Public Domain | No | Public Domain | Public Domain | No |
| CC BY | Creative Commons | 4.0 | 2002 | Permissive[19] | Permissive | Permissive | No | Yes | Permissive | No |
| CC BY-SA | Creative Commons | 4.0 | 2002 | Copylefted[19] | Copylefted | Copylefted | No | Yes | Copylefted[20] | No |
| CeCILL | CEA /CNRS /INRIA | 2.1 | June 21, 2013 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | No | Permissive | With restrictions | No |
| Common Development and Distribution License | Sun Microsystems | 1.0 | December 1, 2004 | Permissive | ? | Limited | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Common Public License | IBM | 1.0 | May 2001 | Permissive | ? | Copylefted | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Cryptix General License | Cryptix Foundation | — | 1995 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Manually | Yes | ? | Manually |
| Eclipse Public License | Eclipse Foundation | 2.0 | August 24, 2017 | Permissive[21] | Copylefted[21][22] | Copylefted[21] | Yes[21] | Yes[21] | Copylefted[21] | No[21] |
| Educational Community License | Indiana University[23] | 1.0 | 2007 | Permissive | ? | Permissive | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| European Union Public Licence | European Commission | 1.2 | May 2017 | Permissive, according to EU law (Recitals 10 & 15 Directive 2009/24/EC) | Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[24] | Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[24] | Yes[25] | yes, but network usage (communication to the public) is considered as a "distribution"[25] | Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[24] | No[25] |
| FreeBSD | The FreeBSD project | — | April 1999 | Permissive[26] | Permissive[26] | Permissive[26] | Manually[26] | Permissive[26] | Permissive[26] | Manually[26] |
| GNU Affero General Public License | Free Software Foundation | 3.0 | 2007 | GNU GPLv3 only[27] | Copylefted[28] | Copylefted[28] | Yes[29] | Network usage is not considered private use[29] | Copylefted[28] | Yes[29] |
| GNU General Public License | Free Software Foundation | 3.0 | June 2007 | GPLv3 compatible only[30][31] | Copylefted[28] | Copylefted[28] | Yes[32] | Yes[32] | Copylefted[28] | Yes[32] |
| GNU Lesser General Public License | Free Software Foundation | 3.0 | June 2007 | With restrictions[33] | Copylefted[28] | Copylefted[28] | Yes[34] | Yes | Copylefted[28] | Yes[34] |
| IBM Public License | IBM | 1.0 | August 1999 | Copylefted | ? | Copylefted | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| ISC license | Internet Systems Consortium | — | June 2003 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Manually | Permissive | Permissive | Manually |
| LaTeX Project Public License | LaTeX project | 1.3c | ? | Permissive | ? | Permissive | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Microsoft Public License | Microsoft | — | ? | Copylefted | Copylefted | Copylefted | No | Permissive | ? | No |
| MIT license / X11 license | MIT | — | 1988 | Permissive[35] | Permissive[35] | Permissive[35] | Manually[35] | Yes[35] | Permissive[35] | Manually[35] |
| Mozilla Public License | Mozilla Foundation | 2.0 | January 3, 2012 | Permissive[36] | Copylefted[36] | Copylefted[36] | Yes[36] | Yes[36] | Copylefted[36] | No[36] |
| Netscape Public License | Netscape | 1.1 | ? | Limited | ? | Limited | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Open Software License[11] | Lawrence Rosen | 3.0 | 2005 | Permissive | Copylefted | Copylefted | Yes | Yes | Copylefted | ? |
| OpenSSL license | OpenSSL Project | — | ? | Permissive | ? | Permissive | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| PHP License[37] | PHP Group | 3.01 | 2019 | With restrictions | With restrictions | With restrictions | Yes | Yes | With restrictions | Manually |
| Python Software Foundation License | Python Software Foundation | 3.9.1 | May 10, 2020 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Yes | Permissive | Permissive | No |
| Q Public License | Trolltech | ? | ? | Limited | ? | Limited | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Ruby License | Yukihiro Matsumoto | 2.0 | 1995 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Yes | Permissive | Permissive | No |
| Sleepycat License | Sleepycat Software | — | 1996 | Permissive | With restrictions | Permissive | No | Yes | No | No |
| Unlicense | unlicense.org | 1 | December 2010 | Permissive/Public domain | Permissive/Public domain | Permissive/Public domain | ? | Permissive/Public domain | Permissive/Public domain | ? |
| W3C Software Notice and License | W3C | 20021231 | December 31, 2002 | Permissive | ? | Permissive | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL) | Banlu Kemiyatorn,Sam Hocevar | 2 | December 2004 | Permissive/Public domain | Permissive/Public domain | Permissive/Public domain | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| XCore Open Source License also separate "Hardware License Agreement" | XMOS | ? | February 2011 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Manually | Yes | Permissive | ? |
| XFree86 1.1 License | The XFree86 Project, Inc | ? | ? | Permissive | ? | Permissive | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| zlib/libpng license | Jean-Loup Gailly andMark Adler | — | April 15, 1995 | Permissive | Permissive | Permissive | Manually | Yes | Permissive | Manually |
Other licenses that don't have information:
| license | Author | Latest version | Publication date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eiffel Forum License | NICE | 2 | 2002 |
| Intel Open Source License | Intel Corporation | — | ? |
| RealNetworks Public Source License | RealNetworks | ? | ? |
| Reciprocal Public License | Scott Shattuck | 1.5 | 2007 |
| Sun Industry Standards Source License | Sun Microsystems | ? | ? |
| Sun Public License | Sun Microsystems | ? | ? |
| Sybase Open Watcom Public License | Open Watcom | — | 2003-01-28 |
| Zope Public License | Zope Foundation | 2.1 | ? |
| Server Side Public License | MongoDB | 1.0 | 2018-10-16 |
This table lists for each license what organizations from theFOSS community have approved it – be it as a "free software" or as an "open source" license – , how those organizations categorize it, and thelicense compatibility between them for a combined or mixed derivative work. Organizations usually approve specific versions of software licenses. For instance, a FSF approval means that theFree Software Foundation (FSF) considers a license to befree-software license. The FSF recommends at least "Compatible with GPL" and preferablycopyleft. The OSI recommends a mix ofpermissive and copyleft licenses, theApache License 2.0, 2- & 3-clauseBSD license,GPL,LGPL,MIT license,MPL 2.0,CDDL andEPL.
While the OSI acknowledges these as potentially helpful resources for the community, it does not endorse any content, contributors or license interpretations from these websites.[...]The OSI does not promote or exclusively favor any of the above resources, but instead mentions them as a neutral, separate third-party.
CC0 was not explicitly rejected, but the License Review Committee was unable to reach consensus that it should be approved
No. Some of the requirements in GPLv3, such as the requirement to provide Installation Information, do not exist in GPLv2. As a result, the licenses are not compatible: if you tried to combine code released under both these licenses, you would violate section 6 of GPLv2. However, if code is released under GPL "version 2 or later," that is compatible with GPLv3 because GPLv3 is one of the options it permits.
