Open Source Newbie

[Pimm Hogeling]

Depending on what type of software is to be licensed (end-user
product, development library etc) the MPL (Mozilla Public License) or
the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) could be a better choice.

However, if compatibility with other projects is at least some
priority I suggest you do not license your work under the MPL only
since it is incompatible with the widely used GPL. A LGPL license or a
MPL-GPL dual licensing scheme could be more obvious.

Finally to make a more educated guess on what is the best license for
your project, Deepak, please tell us what the project is and why you
would like to release it under a Free Open Source Software license.

Thanks,

Pimm Hogeling

2008/9/2 Tzeng, Nigel H. <Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu>:
>>From: Robin 'Roblimo' Miller [mailto:robin at roblimo.com]
>>For maximum code compatibility with other F/OSS projects, GPL is the
>>obvious choice.
> For maximum code compatibility with other GPL projects, GPL is the
> obvious choice.
>
> For maximum code compatibility with other open source projects, MIT
> or BSD is the obvious choice.
>
> For you, LGPL 2.1 or MPL 1.1 is likely one of the better choices.  They
> provide sufficient reuse but require that enhancements to your code to be
> passed on to users of the derivative code.
>
> http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
>
> I would not use LGPL 3.0 since it is incompatible with GPL v2 only projects.
> Instead use "LGPL 2.1 or later".
>
> Please do not pick GPL if reuse among projects is a desire.  GPL
> "compatibility" with other open source licenses is strictly one way.
>
> I also would not be swayed by the number of projects that use GPL.
>
> The world would be a lot poorer without Apache, BSD, MIT and MPL
> based projects.  No Apache, no Firefox, no BSDs (including OSX) etc.
>
>
>
>