8 Best Open Source Software Licenses Which You Can Use!

  
Saturday, September 06, 2014:  Open source software is trending all over the world now, going with a slow but steady growth. There are so many popular open source tools which we use every day like Firefox, WordPress, 7-Zip, MediaWiki, BitTorrent, Android and several other free alternatives to paid software. But little do people know that all open source licenses are not the same.

There are dozens of them out there with differences in the licenses. So start learning about the licenses used for the open source software products:

1. Apache License 2.0 :

Apache License is authored and used by the Apache Software Foundation, best known for the Apache HTTP Server. Version 2.0 was released in 2004 which made it easier for non-Apache projects to use the license. It is one of the most popular licenses till date.

The main features of this license are commercial use of software, distribution of derivative works, significant changes to original software are noted and many more. With this license authors are allowed to patent their derivative works. Hence this is one of the most permissive software licenses out there.

2. BSD 2-Clause License :

BSD License is a simple and permissive software license, first published in 1990. After that it has been revised twice and each revision has led to further simplification. BSD License's features include commercial uses of software, distribution of derivative works, original copyright and license text need to be kept with distributions and so on. BSD License is quite simple and it has an advantage in the case if anyone is able to commercialise variants of the software with minimal legal conflict. There is a core difference between the BSD License and the Apache License that the Apache License allows a patent grant for derivative works but the BSD License does not.

3. Creative Commons License :

Creative Commons (CC) is an organisation which released several different license types and all of them are designed to encourage sharing of creative works. There are total seven licenses offered by the organisation. CC licenses are fantastic options and sometimes they can stimulate your career too. There are enough CC license variations which accommodate creative work a lot. The Open Source initiative does not recognise these licenses as 'open source'.

4. GNU General Public License 3 :

Created in 1989, GNU General Public License, is an alternative to restrictive proprietary licenses. This license has undergone two revisions and each revision has addressed significant issues lying in previous versions. The Version 3 was released in 2007. With this license too software can be used commercially, derivative works can be distributed, owner of the software cannot be held responsible for any kind of property damage and more.

GPL is synonymous to “software freedom” which means the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, modify, and improve software. It ensures that open source software should remain open source, even when it is supporting derivative works.

5. The MIT License (MIT) :

This license is free of charge which deals without any restriction which means users are free to use, copy, modify, publish, distribute and/or sell copies of the Software.

6. Artistic Licenses :

With the newer version of Artistic Licenses, Artistic License 2.0, everyone is allowed to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but no modification is allowed for the same.

7. Eclipse Public License (EPL) :

It is an open source license which is used by the Eclipse Foundation for its software. It is a replacement to Common Public License (CPL). It's business-friendly and users of this license are allowed to use, modify, copy and distribute works and their versions.

8. Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0) :

Its main goal is maintaining simplicity and this free open source license is a hybrid of modified BSD license and GNU General Public License or GPL. It has undergone two revisions and the most recent version is 2.0 which provides better compatibility with other licenses.