Plain License

All Licenses

Plain-language rewrites of popular open source licenses, organized by family.

4 licenses across 4 families

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Public Domain

Use, share and change freely, with no rules or restrictions. Don't need to give credit. Open source.

Unlicense

Plain Unlicense

The Unlicense is a public domain dedication that allows you to do whatever you want with the work without restrictions or required notices.
Permissive

Use, share and change freely, but keep the copyright notice intact, and give credit to the original authors. Open source.

MIT

Plain MIT License

A short, permissive license. Lets people do almost anything they want with your project.
Copyleft

Share-alike — changes must stay under the same license. This can be narrow (file-level) or broad (project-level) depending on the license. Open source.

MPL-2.0

Plain MPL

The MPL is a "weak copyleft" license. It requires sharing source materials for its parts. It includes a patent grant and is compatible with GPL/LGPL.
Source Available

Also called 'fair code'. Restricts commercial use, changes, or sharing. Otherwise similar to Copyleft. Not open source even if source materials are available.

Elastic-2.0

Plain Elastic License

The Elastic License 2.0 allows use, copying, and changes but you can't offer the work as a managed service. You must keep notices and may lose patent rights if you sue.