How do you choose an open-source license? [closed]

Question

I'm a software engineer, not a lawyer, and my university doesn't offer any courses geared toward licensing software. In fact, their law-related courses are lacking (but slowly growing in number). Where can I go to learn about open-source licenses and how to choose them?

Answer 1

There are lots described here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses

The decision of which one to use can be political, but should ultimately be determined by your plans/desires for the software. If you want to ensure it is always free then choose GPL or another "Copyleft" license. If you don't mind some commercial use, choose another one that's compatible with that.

Answer 2

I almost always end up usign MIT or BSD (they're equivalent), since it

1. Is the most liberal license out there. It just says you're not responsible for any kind of trouble, and optionally forces people to include a copyright notice of your original work in derivatives.
2. It allows closed source derivatives, which is something I see as a good thing: companies sometimes don't have the possibility to do their work under the GPL (they may themselves use products or components from a third party with restricted licenses).

That, and the GNU/GPL bunch are generally extremists when you encounter them in the wild.