Comparison of free and open-source software licenses

This comparison covers notable software licenses which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, the Debian Project, or the Fedora Project.

FOSS licenses FOSS stands for "Free and Open Source Software". There is no one universally agreed-upon definition of FOSS software and various groups maintain approved lists of licenses. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is one such organization keeping a list of open-source licenses.Open source licenses - Licenses by Name on opensource.org The Free Software Foundation (FSF) maintains a list of what it considers free. FSF's free software and OSI's open-source licenses together are called FOSS licenses. There are licenses accepted by the OSI which are not free as per the Free Software Definition. The Open 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. The OSI does not endorse FSF license analysis (interpretation) as per their disclaimer.

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 the four essential freedoms."Relationship between the Free Software movement and Open Source movement", Free Software Foundation, Inc"What is Free Software", Free Software Foundation, Inc The OSI's open-source criteria focuses on the availability of the source code and the advantages of an unrestricted and community driven development model.opensource.org/about "Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in." Yet, many FOSS licenses, like the Apache License, and all Free Software licenses allow commercial use of FOSS components.

General comparison

For a simpler comparison across the most common licenses see free-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' Licensing Assistant, makes possible the licenses selection and comparison based on more than 40 subjects or categories, with access to their SPDX identifier and full text. The table below lists the permissions and limitations regarding the following subjects: Linking - linking of the licensed code with code licensed under a different license (e.g. when the code is provided as a library) Distribution - distribution of the code to third parties Modification - modification of the code by a licensee Patent grant - protection of licensees from patent claims made by code contributors regarding their contribution, and protection of contributors from patent claims made by licensees Private use - whether modification to the code must be shared with the community or may be used privately (e.g. internal use by a corporation) Sublicensing - whether modified code may be licensed under a different license (for example a copyright) or must retain the same license under which it was provided TM grant - use of trademarks associated with the licensed code or its contributors by a licensee

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 available to each user and that all provisions in the license be preserved in derivative works.

LicenseAuthorLatest versionPublication dateLinkingDistributionModificationPatent grantPrivate useSublicensingTM grantAcademic Free License Lawrence E. Rosen 3.0 2002 Affero General Public License Affero Inc 3.0 2007 Apache License Apache Software Foundation 2.0 2004 Apple Public Source License Apple Computer 2.0 August 6, 2003 Artistic License Larry Wall 2.0 2000 Beerware Poul-Henning Kamp 42 1998 BSD License Regents of the University of California Boost Software License Devin Smith 1.0 August 17, 2003 Creative Commons Zero Creative Commons 1.0 2009 CC BY Creative Commons 4.0 2002 cc-by-4-0-and-cc-by-sa-4-0-added-to-our-list-of-free-licenses (2015) CC BY-SA Creative Commons 4.0 2002 CeCILL CEA / CNRS / INRIA 2.1 June 21, 2013 Common Development and Distribution License Sun Microsystems 1.0 December 1, 2004 Common Public License IBM 1.0 May 2001 Cryptix General License Cryptix Foundation 1995 Eclipse Public License Eclipse Foundation 2.0 August 24, 2017 Educational Community License Indiana University 1.0 2007 European Union Public Licence European Commission 1.2 May 2017 FreeBSD The FreeBSD project April 1999 GLWTS License Anonymous 1.0 2025 GNU Affero General Public License Free Software Foundation 3.0 2007 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html : section 13 of the GNU AGPLv3 license https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-howto.html : GNU licenses copyleft GNU General Public License Free Software Foundation 3.0 June 2007 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL : If library is under GPLv3https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL : Linking with the GNU GPLv3 GNU Lesser General Public License Free Software Foundation 3.0 June 2007 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html : the section 4 of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 IBM Public License IBM 1.0 August 1999 ISC license Internet Systems Consortium June 2003 LaTeX Project Public License LaTeX project 1.3c Microsoft Public License Microsoft MIT license / X11 license MIT 1988 Mozilla Public License Mozilla Foundation 2.0 January 3, 2012 Netscape Public License Netscape 1.1 Open Software License Lawrence Rosen 3.0 2005 OpenSSL license OpenSSL Project PHP License PHP Group 3.01 2019 Python Software Foundation License Python Software Foundation 3.9.1 May 10, 2020 Q Public License Trolltech Ruby License Yukihiro Matsumoto 2.0 1995 Sleepycat License Sleepycat Software 1996 Unlicense unlicense.org 1 December 2010 W3C Software Notice and License W3C 20021231 December 31, 2002 Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL) Banlu Kemiyatorn, Sam Hocevar 2 December 2004 XCore Open Source Licensealso separate "Hardware License Agreement" XMOS February 2011 XFree86 1.1 License The XFree86 Project, Inc zlib/libpng license Jean-Loup Gailly and Mark Adler April 15, 1995

Other licenses that don't have information: licenseAuthorLatest versionPublication dateEiffel Forum License NICE 2 2002Intel Open Source LicenseIntel Corporation RealNetworks Public Source LicenseRealNetworks Reciprocal Public License Scott Shattuck 1.5 2007Sun Industry Standards Source License Sun Microsystems Sun Public License Sun Microsystems Sybase Open Watcom Public LicenseOpen Watcom 2003-01-28Zope Public LicenseZope Foundation 2.1 Server Side Public LicenseMongoDB 1.0 2018-10-16

Approvals This table lists for each license what organizations from the FOSS community have approved itbe it as a "free software" or as an "open source" license, how those organizations categorize it, and the license 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 the Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers a license to be free-software license. The FSF recommends at least "Compatible with GPL" and preferably copyleft. The OSI recommends a mix of permissive and copyleft licenses, the Apache License 2.0, 2- & 3-clause BSD license, GPL, LGPL, MIT license, MPL 2.0, CDDL and EPL.

License and versionFSF approvalGPL (v3) compatibilityOSI approvalDebian approvalFedora approvalAcademic Free License Apache License 1.x Apache License 2.0 Apple Public Source License 1.x Apple Public Source License 2.0 Artistic License 1.0 The original version of the Artistic License is defined as non-free because it is overly vague, not because of the substance of the license. The FSF encourages projects to use the Clarified Artistic License instead. Artistic License 2.0 Beerware License Original BSD license Revised BSD license Simplified BSD license Zero-Clause BSD License Boost Software License CeCILL Common Development and Distribution License Are GPLv2 and CDDL incompatible? on hansenpartnership.com by James E.J. Bottomley "What the above analysis shows is that even though we presumed combination of GPLv2 and CDDL works to be a technical violation, there's no way actually to prosecute such a violation because we can’t develop a convincing theory of harm resulting. Because this makes it impossible to take the case to court, effectively it must be concluded that the combination of GPLv2 and CDDL, provided you’re following a GPLv2 compliance regime for all the code, is allowable." (23 February 2016)GPL Violations Related to Combining ZFS and Linux on sfconservancy.org by Bradley M. Kuhn and Karen M. Sandler (February 25, 2016) Common Public License Creative Commons Zero Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 Cryptix General License Eclipse Public License Educational Community License Eiffel Forum License 2 European Union Public Licence GNU Affero General Public License https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ : "We use only licenses that are compatible with the GNU GPL for GNU software." GNU General Public License v2 But can be made compatible by upgrading to GPLv3 via the optional "or later" clause added in most GPLv2 license texts. GNU General Public License v3 But not with GPLv2 without "or later" clause. GNU Lesser General Public License GNU Free Documentation License IBM Public License Intel Open Source License ISC license LaTeX Project Public License Microsoft Public License Microsoft Reciprocal License MIT license / X11 license MIT No Attribution License Mozilla Public License 1.1 Mozilla Public License 2.0 MPL 2.0 is GPL compatible unless marked "Incompatible with Secondary Licenses". NASA Open Source Agreement Netscape Public License Open Software License OpenSSL license PHP License Python Software Foundation License 2.0.1; 2.1.1 and newer Q Public License Reciprocal Public License 1.5 Sleepycat License Sun Industry Standards Source License Sun Public License Sybase Open Watcom Public License Unlicense W3C Software Notice and License Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL) Listed as WTFPL. XFree86 1.1 License zlib/libpng license Zope Public License 1.0 Zope Public License 2.0

Comparison of free and open-source software licenses

Bron en licentie