A Complete Guide to All Open Source Licenses on GitHub - 2025

Certainly! Below is a concise overview of each license from your GitHub list — focusing on their rules, policies, and typical use cases — followed by my recommendation for your "Hands-on Notes" repo.

1. Apache License 2.0

• Permissions: Free use, modification, distribution, private use

• Conditions: Must provide attribution, include a copy of the license, state changes made

• Patents: Grants explicit patent rights from contributors

• Use Case: Popular for software projects where patent protection is important

• Restrictions: Trademark use not granted

2. GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0)

• Permissions: Use, modify, distribute (including commercially)

• Conditions: Derivatives must also be licensed under GPL-3.0 (copyleft)

• Use Case: Projects wanting to ensure all derived works remain open source

• Restrictions: Strong copyleft — can't close source derivatives

3. MIT License

• Permissions: Use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense

• Conditions: Must include copyright notice and license text

• Use Case: Very permissive; used for libraries, code, and documents

• Restrictions: No warranty, no liability

4. BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License

• Permissions: Use, modify, distribute

• Conditions: Must include copyright and license notice

• Use Case: Simple permissive license, less restrictive than GPL

• Restrictions: No warranty, no endorsement

5. BSD 3-Clause "New" License

• Permissions: Same as BSD 2-Clause plus additional clause

• Conditions: Prohibits using contributors' names for promotion without permission

• Use Case: When wanting permissive license with non-endorsement clause

• Restrictions: No warranty

6. Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal (CC0)

• Permissions: Public domain dedication — no rights reserved

• Conditions: None — anyone can use, modify, distribute without attribution

• Use Case: For documents, notes, creative works where you waive all rights

• Restrictions: None

7. Eclipse Public License 2.0

• Permissions: Use, modify, distribute

• Conditions: Source code changes must be shared under EPL

• Use Case: Similar to LGPL, used mostly for software projects

• Restrictions: Patent grant, contributor agreements

8. GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)

• Permissions: Use, modify, distribute

• Conditions: Strong copyleft, including network use (if you run the software over a network, must share source)

• Use Case: Server software, SaaS, where you want to enforce open source even in cloud services

• Restrictions: Strong copyleft

9. GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPL-2.0)

• Similar to GPL-3.0 but less strict on patents and compatibility

• Strong copyleft

10. GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 (LGPL-2.1)

• Permissive compared to GPL — allows linking with non-(L)GPL software

• Often used for libraries

11. Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0)

• Permissions: Use, modify, distribute

• Conditions: Source code files modified must be open source

• Use Case: Allows mixing open source and proprietary code in projects

• Restrictions: File-level copyleft

12. The Unlicense

• Public domain dedication similar to CC0

• Simple “do what you want” license with no restrictions