Every time you start developing a new piece of software that needs external libraries to be used and integrated, the licensing dilemma strikes again. If you are a developer of a well standardized software company you can have stronger restrictions on the licenses to be used (even a list of usable licenses), however when you have to start your software from scratch, or start a software “business idea”, it is important to know something more on what you can take and what you can reuse without breaking somebody’s heart. I would like to dedicate this “in progress” post to collect in one page a brief description of the major families or licenses that can be used while developing free software but with possible commercial purposes! I hope it will help and I warmly advise anybody that would suggest any further detail to post a comment and I will be glad to integrate my content with that!

Apache License 2.0

• Free Software
• OSI Compatible
• Linking from code with a different license
• no Copyleft
• GPL v3 Compatible

software can be redistributed in any other license, but should be noticed that Apache software is included
Two files that must be put at the top directory of redistributed software packages:

* LICENSE – a copy of the license itself.
* NOTICE – A “notice” text document listing the names of licensed libraries used, together with their developers.

In every licensed file, any original copyright or patent notices in redistributed code must be preserved, and in every licensed file changed a notification must be added stating that changes have been made to that file.

Gnu LGPL License

• Free Software
• OSI Compatible
• Linking from code with a different license
• Copyleft
• GPL Compatible

an author may, through a copyleft licensing scheme, give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute the work as long as any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft licensing scheme.

primarly used for software libraries; has copyleft restrictions. it is something in between GPL and BSD/APACHE like licenses.

BSD Licenses

• Free Software
• OSI Compatible
• Linking from code with a different license
• no Copyleft
• GPL Compatible

Eclipse Public License

• Free Software
• OSI Compatible
• Linking from code with a different license
• Copyleft
• no GPL  Compatible

is designed to be business friendly. allows developers to create their own licenses on the portion of the codes that are added.

Academic Free License

• Free Software
• OSI Compatible
• Linking from code with a different license
• no Copyleft
• GPL  Compatible unknown

considered redundant specifically to the Apache License 2.0

MIT License

considered a duplicate of BSD-like licenses