and many countries, there are certain legal protections you are automatically granted for any creative work you produce, one of those being copyright. If you’d like to learn more about patents, trademarks, and intellectual property, you can visit the U.S. Note: This article is not intended to provide any form of legal advice, it’s solely a resource of information on the topic of open-source software licensing.

We will also discuss the differences between proprietary, free, and open-source software, permissive and copyleft licenses, and information about the open-source software license options suggested when creating a GitHub project. In this article, we will share information about rights you have when your work is created (such as copyright), and how licensing helps establish the legal agreement you want your users to abide by when using your software.

When it comes to long-term planning for your project, it’s useful to understand the open-source software licenses available so that you can make an informed decision about which one best suits your project’s needs. There are many different open-source software licenses, and they vary based on the restrictions a creator may want future users to abide by. Broadly speaking, open-source software licenses make the source code available for use, modification, and distribution based on agreed-upon terms and conditions. Regardless of their reasoning, developers can accomplish this by implementing an open-source software license. This may be because they want their software to be as widely used as possible, or perhaps they oppose restrictive software licenses on philosophical grounds. Others, however, may choose to license their software with few or no restrictions.

Some developers may want to place strong restrictions over how their software can be used. For software developers who may want to exercise certain rights, permissions, and control over how the work is used, modified, and shared by others, choosing a software license is an important decision. A software license is a legal agreement that defines how a given piece of software can be used.

Software license manager open source