Comparison of free and open-source software licences

This is a comparison of free and open-source software licences. The comparison only covers software licences with a linked article for details, approved by at least one expert group at the FSF, the OSI, the Debian project or the Fedora project. For a list of licences not specifically intended for software, see List of free content licences.

FOSS licences

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 licences. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is one such organization keeping a list of open-source licences.[1] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) maintains a list of what it considers free.[2] FSF's free software and OSI's open-source licences together are called FOSS licences. There are licences 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.[3][4] The OSI does not endorse FSF licence 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 redistribute it for any purpose, which are considered by the FSF the four essential freedoms.[6][7] 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.[8] Yet, many FOSS licences, like the Apache License, and all Free Software licences allow commercial use of FOSS components.[9]

General comparison

For a simpler comparison across the most common licenses see free-software license comparison.

The following table compares various features of each licence and is a general guide to the terms and conditions of each licence, 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 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 licence (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 licence (for example a copyright) or must retain the same licence under which it was provided
  • TM grant - use of trademarks associated with the licensed code or its contributors by a licensee
Licence Author Latest version Publication date Linking Distribution Modification Patent grant Private use Sublicensing TM grant

Academic Free License[11]Lawrence E. Rosen3.02002PermissivePermissivePermissiveYesYesPermissiveNo
Affero General Public LicenseAffero Inc2.02007Copylefted[12]Copyleft except for the GNU AGPL[12]Copyleft[12]?Yes[12]??
Apache LicenseApache Software Foundation2.02004Permissive[13]Permissive[13]Permissive[13]Yes[13]Yes[13]Permissive[13]No[13]
Apple Public Source LicenseApple Computer2.02003August 6, 2003Permissive?Limited????
Artistic LicenseLarry Wall2.02000With restrictionsWith restrictionsWith restrictionsNoPermissiveWith restrictionsNo
BeerwarePoul-Henning Kamp421987PermissivePermissivePermissiveNoPermissivePermissiveNo
BSD LicenseRegents of the University of California3.0?Permissive[14]Permissive[14]Permissive[14]Manually[14]Yes[14]Permissive[14]Manually[14]
Boost Software License?1.02003August 17, 2003Permissive?Permissive????
Creative Commons ZeroCreative Commons1.02009Public Domain[15][16]Public DomainPublic DomainNoPublic DomainPublic DomainNo
CC BYCreative Commons4.02002Permissive[17]PermissivePermissiveNoYesPermissive?
CC BY-SACreative Commons4.02002Copylefted[17]CopyleftedCopyleftedNoYesNo?
CeCILLCEA / CNRS / INRIA2.12005June 21, 2013PermissivePermissivePermissiveNoPermissiveWith restrictionsNo
Common Development and Distribution LicenseSun Microsystems1.02004-12December 1, 2004Permissive?Limited????
Common Public LicenseIBM1.02001May 2001Permissive?Copylefted????
Cryptix General LicenseCryptix FoundationN/A1995PermissivePermissivePermissiveManuallyYes?Manually
Eclipse Public LicenseEclipse Foundation2.0August 24, 2017Limited[18]Limited[18]Limited[18]Yes[18]Yes[18]Limited[18]Manually[18]
Educational Community LicenseIndiana University[19]1.02007Permissive?Permissive????
European Union Public LicenceEuropean Commission1.22009May 2017Permissive, according to EU law (Recitals 10 & 15 Directive 2009/24/EC)Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[20]Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[20]Yes[21]Yes[21]Copylefted, with an explicit compatibility list[20]No[21]
FreeBSDThe FreeBSD projectN/A1999April 1999Permissive[22]Permissive[22]Permissive[22]Manually[22]Permissive[22]Permissive[22]Manually[22]
GNU Affero General Public LicenseFree Software Foundation3.02007GNU GPLv3 only[23]Copylefted[24]Copylefted[24]Yes[25]No network usage[25]Copylefted[24]Yes[25]
GNU General Public LicenseFree Software Foundation3.02007June 2007GPLv3 compatible only[26][27]Copylefted[24]Copylefted[24]Yes[28]Yes[28]Copylefted[24]Yes[28]
GNU Lesser General Public LicenseFree Software Foundation3.02007June 2007With restrictions[29]Copylefted[24]Copylefted[24]Yes[30]YesCopylefted[24]Yes[30]
IBM Public LicenseIBM1.01999August 1999Copylefted?Copylefted????
ISC licenseInternet Systems ConsortiumN/A2003June 2003PermissivePermissivePermissiveManuallyPermissivePermissiveManually
LaTeX Project Public LicenseLaTeX project1.3c?Permissive?Permissive????
Microsoft Public LicenseMicrosoftN/A?PermissivePermissivePermissiveNoPermissive?No
MIT license / X11 licenseMITN/A1988Permissive[31]Permissive[31]Permissive[31]Manually[31]Yes[31]Permissive[31]Manually[31]
Mozilla Public LicenseMozilla Foundation2.02012January 3, 2012Permissive[32]Copylefted[32]Copylefted[32]Yes[32]Yes[32]Copylefted[32]No[32]
Netscape Public LicenseNetscape1.1?Limited?Limited????
Open Software License[11]Lawrence Rosen3.02005PermissiveCopyleftedCopyleftedYesYesCopylefted?
OpenSSL licenseOpenSSL ProjectN/A?Permissive?Permissive????
PHP License[33]PHP Group3.012019With restrictionsWith restrictionsWith restrictionsYesYesWith restrictionsManually
Python Software Foundation LicensePython Software Foundation2?Permissive?Permissive????
Q Public LicenseTrolltech??Limited?Limited????
Sleepycat LicenseSleepycat SoftwareN/A1996PermissiveWith restrictionsPermissiveNoYesNoNo
Unlicenseunlicense.org12010December 2010Permissive/Public domainPermissive/Public domainPermissive/Public domain?Permissive/Public domainPermissive/Public domain?
W3C Software Notice and LicenseW3C200212312002December 31, 2002Permissive?Permissive????
Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL)Banlu Kemiyatorn, Sam Hocevar22004December 2004Permissive/Public domainPermissive/Public domainPermissive/Public domainNoYesYesNo
XCore Open Source License
also separate "Hardware License Agreement"		XMOS?2011February 2011PermissivePermissivePermissiveManuallyYesPermissive?
XFree86 1.1 LicenseThe XFree86 Project, Inc??Permissive?Permissive????
zlib/libpng licenseJean-Loup Gailly and Mark Adler??Permissive?Permissive????

Other licences that don't have information:

Licence Author Latest version Publication date

Eiffel Forum LicenseNICE22002
Intel Open Source LicenseIntel CorporationN/A?
RealNetworks Public Source LicenseRealNetworks??
Reciprocal Public LicenseScott Shattuck1.52007
Sun Industry Standards Source LicenseSun Microsystems??
Sun Public LicenseSun Microsystems??
Sybase Open Watcom Public LicenseOpen WatcomN/A2003-01-28
Zope Public LicenseZope Foundation2.1?

Approvals

This table lists for each licence what organizations from the FOSS community have approved it – be it as a "free software" or as an "open source" licence – , how those organizations categorize it, and the licence compatibility between them for a combined or mixed derivative work. Organizations usually approve specific versions of software licences. For instance, a FSF approval means that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers a licence to be free software licence. The FSF recommends at least "Compatible with GPL" and preferably copyleft. The OSI recommends a mix of permissive and copyleft licences, the Apache License 2.0, 2- & 3-clause BSD license, GPL, LGPL, MIT license, MPL 2.0, CDDL and EPL.

Licence and version FSF approval
[34]		 GPL (v3) compatibility
[35][36][37][38][39]		 OSI approval
[40]		 Debian approval
[41][42]		 Fedora approval
[43]
Academic Free LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
Affero General Public License 3.0YesYesYesYesYes
Apache License 1.xYesNoYesYesYes
Apache License 2.0YesGPLv3 only[44]YesYesYes
Apple Public Source License 1.xNo[45]NoYesNoNo
Apple Public Source License 2.0YesNoYesNoYes
Artistic License 1.0No[note 1]NoYesYesNo
Artistic License 2.0YesYesYesYesYes
Beerware Licensesee "informal licence" section[46]see "informal license" section[46]NoNoYes[47]
Original BSD licenseYesNoNo[48]YesYes
Modified BSD licenseYesYesYesYesYes
Zero-Clause BSD License??Yes[49]??
Boost Software LicenseYesYesYesYesYes
CeCILLYesYesYesYesYes
Common Development and Distribution LicenseYesGPLv3 (GPLv2 disputed)[50][51][52][53][54][55]YesYesYes
Common Public LicenseYesNoYesYesYes
Creative Commons ZeroYes[56]Yes[56]not approved and not rejected[57]Partial[58][59]Yes[60]
Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0YesGPLv3[61]?Yes?
Cryptix General LicenseYesYesYesYesYes
Eclipse Public LicenseYesNoYesYesYes
Educational Community LicenseYesYes[62]YesNoYes
Eiffel Forum License 2YesYesYesYesYes
European Union Public LicenceYesYes[20]YesYes?
GNU Affero General Public LicenseYesYes[23][63]YesYesYes
GNU General Public License v2YesNo[note 2][64]YesYesYes
GNU General Public License v3YesYes[note 3][64]YesYesYes
GNU Lesser General Public LicenseYesYesYesYesYes
GNU Free Documentation LicenseYesNo[65]Yes[66]No[67]No
IBM Public LicenseYesNoYesYesYes
Intel Open Source LicenseYesYesYesNoNo
ISC licenseYes[68]YesYesYesYes
LaTeX Project Public LicenseYesNoYesYesYes
Microsoft Public LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
Microsoft Reciprocal LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
MIT license / X11 licenseYesYesYesYesYes
Mozilla Public License 1.1YesNoYesYesYes
Mozilla Public License 2.0YesYes[note 4][69]YesYesYes
NASA Open Source AgreementNoNoYes?No
Netscape Public LicenseYesNoNoNoYes
Open Software LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
OpenSSL licenseYesNoNoYesYes
PHP LicenseYesNoYesYesYes
Python Software Foundation License 2.0.1; 2.1.1 and newerYesYesYesYesYes
Q Public LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
Reciprocal Public License 1.5NoNoYesNoNo
Sleepycat LicenseYesYesYesYesYes
Sun Industry Standards Source LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
Sun Public LicenseYesNoYesNoYes
Sybase Open Watcom Public LicenseNoNoYesNoNo
UnlicenseYes[70]Yes[56]while considered free not recommended[71]?Yes[60]
W3C Software Notice and LicenseYesYesYesYesYes
Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL)Yes[note 5]YesNo[72]YesYes
XFree86 1.1 LicenseYesYes[73]NoNoNo
zlib/libpng licenseYesYesYesYesYes
Zope Public License 1.0YesNoNoNoYes
Zope Public License 2.0YesYesYesNoYes
  1. The original version of the Artistic License is defined as non-free because it is overly vague, not because of the substance of the licence. The FSF encourages projects to use the Clarified Artistic License instead.
  2. But can be made compatible by upgrading to GPLv3 via the optional "or later" clause added in most GPLv2 license texts.
  3. But not with GPLv2 without "or later" clause.
  4. MPL 2.0 is GPL compatible unless marked "Incompatible with Secondary Licenses".
  5. Listed as WTFPL.

See also

References
  1. Open source licenses - Licenses by Name on opensource.org
  2. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  3. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them: NASA Open Source Agreement". Free Software Foundation.
  4. "Licenses by Name". Open Source Initiative.
  5. "Other Resources & Disclaimer". Open Source Initiative. 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.
  6. "Relationship between the Free Software movement and Open Source movement", Free Software Foundation, Inc
  7. "What is Free Software", Free Software Foundation, Inc
  8. 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."
  9. Popp, Dr. Karl Michael (2015). Best Practices for commercial use of open source software. Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3738619096.
  10. "Joinup Licensing Assistant". Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  11. "OSL 3.0 Explained".
  12. "affero.org: Affero General Public License version 2 (AGPLv2)".
  13. "the section 4 of the apache license version 2".
  14. "BSD license".
  15. "Using CC0 for public domain software". Creative Commons. April 15, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  16. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". GNU Project. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
  17. cc-by-4-0-and-cc-by-sa-4-0-added-to-our-list-of-free-licenses (2015)
  18. "the eclipse public license version 1".
  19. Greenstein, Daniel; Wheeler, Brad (1 March 2007). "Open Source Collaboration in Higher Education: Guidelines and Report of the Licensing and Policy Framework Summit for Software Sharing in Higher Education" – via scholarworks.iu.edu.
  20. "EUPL compatible open source licences".
  21. "EUPL text (1.1 & 1.2)".
  22. "FreeBSD license".
  23. : section 13 of the GNU AGPLv3 license
  24. : GNU licenses copyleft
  25. "the GNU Affero General Public License version 3".
  26. : If library is under GPLv3
  27. : Linking with the GNU GPLv3
  28. "the GNU General Public License version 3".
  29. : the section 4 of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3
  30. "the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3".
  31. "MIT License".
  32. "MPL version 2".
  33. "PHP Licence 3.01".
  34. Free Software Foundation. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  35. Free Software Foundation. "To be GPL-Compatible has to be compatible with Licenses GNU GPLv3 and GNU GPLv2 – Free Software Foundation". Software Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  36. Free Software Foundation. "GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses – Free Software Foundation". Software Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  37. Free Software Foundation. "GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses – Free Software Foundation". Software Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  38. Free Software Foundation. "GPL-compatible Definition by FSF – Free Software Foundation". GPL-compatible Definition. Free Software Foundation.
  39. Free Software Foundation. "GPL-compatible Definition previous version by FSF – Free Software Foundation". GPL-compatible Definition. Free Software Foundation.
  40. Open Source Initiative. "The Approved Licenses". License Information. Open Source Initiative.
  41. Debian. "Debian – License information". Licenses. Debian.
  42. "The DFSG and Software Licenses". Debian wiki.
  43. Fedora. "Licensing – FedoraProject". Licenses. Fedora Project.
  44. Free Software Foundation. "Apache License, Version 2.0". Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  45. "Apple Public Source License (APSL), version 1.x". Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  46. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". Free Software Foundation. 2016-01-05. Retrieved 2016-01-05.
  47. "Licensing/Beerware". Fedora Project. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
  48. "3-clause BSD License at OSI".
  49. "[License-review] Please rename "Free Public License-1.0.0" to 0BSD". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved 2019-02-11.
  50. "Various Licenses and Comments About Them - Common Development and Distribution License". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  51. Michael Larabel (6 October 2015). "Ubuntu Is Planning To Make The ZFS File-System A "Standard" Offering". Phoronix.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  52. Dustin Kirkland (18 February 2016). "ZFS Licensing and Linux". Ubuntu Insights. Canonical.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  53. 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)
  54. Moglen, Eben; Choudhary, Mishi (26 February 2016). "The Linux Kernel, CDDL and Related Issues".
  55. GPL Violations Related to Combining ZFS and Linux on sfconservancy.org by Bradley M. Kuhn and Karen M. Sandler (February 25, 2016)
  56. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation".
  57. "Frequently Answered Questions". opensource.org. CC0 was not explicitly rejected, but the License Review Committee was unable to reach consensus that it should be approved
  58. "Re: Creative Commons CC0".
  59. "License information".
  60. "Licensing:Main".
  61. "Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 declared one-way compatible with GNU GPL version 3 — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software".
  62. Free Software Foundation. "Educational Community License 2.0". Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  63. : "We use only licenses that are compatible with the GNU GPL for GNU software."
  64. "Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses – Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2?". gnu.org. Retrieved 3 June 2014. 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.
  67. "General Resolution: Why the GNU Free Documentation License is not suitable for Debian main".
  68. Free Software Foundation. "A Quick Guide to GPLv3". Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
  69. Mozilla Foundation. "MPL 2.0 FAQ". Licenses. Mozilla Foundation.
  70. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation".
  71. "Frequently Answered Questions".
  72. "OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Wednesday, March 4, 2009".
  73. Free Software Foundation. "XFree86 1.1 License". Licenses. Free Software Foundation.
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