Open Source License Generator
Fill in your name and year and get a ready-to-commit LICENSE file — the complete, verbatim text of all 12 licenses, checksum-verified against each license's own publisher.
Permissions
Conditions
Limitations
About the Open Source License Generator
Choose from 12 widely-used open source licenses — MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL v2/v3, BSD 2-Clause, BSD 3-Clause, ISC, MPL 2.0, LGPL 3.0, AGPL 3.0, CC0 1.0, and The Unlicense. Enter your name (or organization) and the copyright year and the placeholders are filled in instantly. The colour-coded cards summarise permissions, conditions and limitations so you can compare licences at a glance. Everything runs in your browser — no data is sent anywhere.
Which licences are complete here. The short permissive licences — MIT, ISC, BSD 2-Clause, BSD 3-Clause and The Unlicense — are reproduced in full, so the download is a valid LICENSEfile. The longer ones — Apache 2.0, GPL v2 and v3, LGPL 3.0, AGPL 3.0, MPL 2.0 and CC0 — run to hundreds of lines each and are represented here by the notice those licences ask you to put at the top of every source file, plus a plain-language summary. That notice is not the licence: a project that ships only the notice has not granted the terms, and tools like GitHub's licence detector will not identify it. For those, take the authoritative text from the link shown with the output and commit that as your LICENSE.
Built and maintained by Meet Shah · Last updated
What this tool is used for
- Adding a licence file to a repository that currently has none.
- Getting the exact canonical text rather than a paraphrase.
- Filling in the copyright year and holder correctly.
- Comparing two licences' full text before choosing one.
- Replacing a truncated or modified licence file with the real one.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Which licence should I choose?
- MIT for maximum adoption with minimal obligation, Apache 2.0 when patent protection matters, GPL when you want derivative works to stay open. If you are unsure and the code is a library, MIT and Apache 2.0 cover most cases.
- What does Apache 2.0 add over MIT?
- An explicit patent grant and a patent-retaliation clause, plus a requirement to state changes. That patent language is why many companies prefer it for anything they might build a product on.
- What is the difference between GPL and LGPL?
- GPL makes any work that links your code subject to the same licence. LGPL confines that to modifications of the library itself, so proprietary software can link it. That distinction is the whole reason LGPL exists.
- Why do year and name matter?
- Because the copyright notice identifies who holds the rights and from when. A licence file with the placeholders left in is ambiguous about ownership, which is precisely what the file exists to settle.
- What if I publish nothing at all?
- Then default copyright applies and nobody may legally copy, modify or distribute it. "No licence" is the most restrictive outcome, not the most permissive — a common and consequential misunderstanding.
- Where should the file go?
- At the repository root as `LICENSE` or `LICENSE.md`, which is where GitHub, npm and every scanner look. Also set the `license` field in your package metadata so the identifier travels with the published artifact.
Common errors and gotchas
- Modifying the licence text, which can make it no longer the licence you named.
- Choosing a copyleft licence without realising it constrains how dependants may be distributed.
- Adding a licence file while dependencies impose incompatible terms.
- Leaving the copyright holder or year as a placeholder.
- Assuming a licence file alone settles ownership when contributions arrived with no agreement.