Licensing quick reference¶

You do not need to become an expert in licensing to start. You need to know enough to make a decision and not accidentally restrict your work or someone else's.

For content (lecture notes, course material, research papers)¶

CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution): Anyone can use, adapt, and redistribute, with credit. This is the most open option and the one strongly recommended by UNESCO for Open Educational Resources.

CC BY-SA (Share-Alike): Same as CC BY but derivatives must carry the same licence. Use this if you want to ensure the work stays open. (This is the license Wikipedia uses).

CC BY-NC (Non-Commercial): Restricts commercial use. Use cautiously as it can limit legitimate academic reuse in ways you may not intend.

For software (code written by faculty or students)¶

MIT Licence: Very permissive. Anyone can use it for anything, including commercial products, as long as they include the original copyright notice. A good default for student projects.

Apache 2.0: Similar to MIT but includes a patent grant. Preferred by larger projects where patent protection might be relevant.

GPL (v2 or v3): Requires that derivative software also be open source. Use when you want to ensure the software stays free and open.

Practical rule of thumb: If you are sharing content or teaching material, use CC BY. If you are sharing code and want it to stay open, use GPL. If you want maximum adoption of your code, use MIT. When in doubt, ask FOSS United or SFLC.in.