Licenses

I did some research regarding what option to choose for a license. First, I looked at a few MHD codes that are freely downloadable, 70% of them are released under GPL v2/v3 license, the rest have a BSD or MIT license, and some come with no license at all.

Below is a simple as possible explanation of the 3 most used licenses, GPL, BSD and MIT

GPL is the open source license that seems to give the most restrictions, here is an except of a simple explanation that I've found online

  • The GPL governs ones rights to redistribute software using the GPL as a license.
  • The GPL gives me the right to take GPL code and redistribute it as is (provided that I also respect any related trademarks). For example, I can't take Firefox and redistribute it under the name "Firefox" since the name is a trademark owned by Mozilla and only they have the right to convey its name on software.
  • the GPL also allows people to sell copies of GPL software. Most people don't understand this for one simple reason, "why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free." Selling GPL software just doesn't make sense in that regard. But it has been done very successfully. People used to sell Linux on CD - but the value of doing so was clear: at the time to download Linux could take days, so for many shelling out $29.95 for the 5 of so CDs was a huge convenience.
  • The GPL also says that you can take GPL software, and modify it and redistribute it as well. For example, Microsoft could take the OpenOffice suite, make tons of changes (under auspices of making it better) and then turn right around and sell it. —- There is a catch though, any change you make to GPL software AND also redistribute you must also make available under the same license. In other words, Microsoft would need to make any changes they made to Open Office freely available to others.
  • The GPL also says I can take a portion of code from a GPL program and include it in my own. For example, say I want to write a blogging platform in Perl. I have written most of the code myself, but I deem Movable Type's commenting system to be perfect. So I cut and paste large portions of it into my software. Under the GPL, this is equivalent to forming a derived work, and my new blogging platform is compelled to be GPL as well.

Please note this part:

  • with GPL it is reasonable and acceptable for someone to download a copy of WordPress, modify it, pay a consultant to modify it, add features to it, redesign it, etc, etc, etc. and never be compelled to share the modifications they have made, or be compelled to open source anything else in their organization.'

Moving on, the BSD license is less restrictive.
Here is a quote I found: If you want to give your software away for free, use BSD. If you want to share your software, use the GPL.
This license allows other entities to redistribute a software without releasing the source code. It provides a very short license agreement:

1) Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2) Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3) Neither the name of Yahoo! Inc. nor the names of YUI's contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission of Yahoo! Inc.

Last but not least, we have the MIT license, it gives the same restrictions as a BSD license, the only difference is that an MIT license does not force other entities to mention the original authors of a software in case of redistribution.

A useful comparison table ( ​https://blogs.oracle.com/davidleetodd/entry/free_and_open_source_license )

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