Licensing guide
Licensing a project is always complex and in my opinion, it's not that easy to figure out what others can or cannot do. Therefore I decided to write this page for people like me that never understand the differences among the most famous licenses.Thanks to Google Gemini for giving a clear explanation.
MIT License
The MIT License applies exclusively to software and source code. It embodies the purest form of open-source philosophy and is extremely permissive. The only thing a user cannot do with MIT-licensed code is claim to have written it themselves. Other than that, they can take it, modify it, include it in a paid program, and resell it without paying you a penny.The text of the MIT license contains a clause written in all capital letters that has become very famous in the world of programming. It specifies that the software is provided "AS IS", without warranties of any kind.
General Purpose License (GNU GPL v3)
Released by the Free Software Foundation, the GPL v3 is a software license guided by a strict political and philosophical principle: Copyleft (or reciprocity). While the MIT license says "Do whatever you want with my code, just don't blame me", the GPL v3 says, "I give you permission to use, modify, and distribute my code, BUT any software you create based on mine must be released under this exact same open-source license".If you take a library released under GPL v3 and include it in your software's code, all of your software becomes "infected" (in a positive sense for the community) by the GPL v3. This means:
- you cannot take GPL v3 code, modify it, and sell it as "closed-source" proprietary software;
- if you distribute the program, you are legally required to make the complete source code—including all your modifications—public.
Creative Commons International v4 License (CC)
They are free legal tools that allow creators of works (such as text, photos, videos, or software) to move beyond the rigid "all rights reserved" approach of traditional copyright to a more flexible "some rights reserved" model. Instead of prohibiting any use, the author specifies in advance what others may or may not do with their work.Each license in the Creative Commons family is composed of a combination of one to three of these four basic terms:
- BY (Attribution): you must credit the original author, provide a link to the license, and indicate whether any changes were made. This clause is included in all licenses;
- NC (Non-Commercial): the work may be shared or modified, but not for primarily commercial purposes or for monetary gain;
- ND (No Derivative Works): the work may be copied and distributed exactly as it is. You may not modify, alter, or use it to create a derivative work (e.g., remixes or translations);
- SA (Share Alike): if you modify the work or use it to create a new work, you must distribute the final result under the exact same license as the original.