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+---
+title: Choosing a software license
+---
+
+Most public projects on SourceHut (or anywhere else) need to have a software
+license before others can use the project, contribute to the code, and so on.
+Choosing the right license for your needs is important. If you're unsure of
+which to use, we can offer some suggestions.
+
+*Note: we are not your lawyer and this is not legal advice.*
+
+Once you pick a license, add it to your project is by copying the plain-text
+version into a file called "LICENSE" or "COPYING" at the root directory of your
+repository.
+
+## I want others to share their improvements with me.
+
+The GNU foundation publishes the GNU General Public License for this purpose. In
+short, it requires anyone who modifies or reuses your code to publish their
+changes or the software they incorporated it into under the same license terms.
+Version 3 also requires hardware manufacturers to allow users to install their
+modifications onto devices which use GPLv3 licensed software.
+
+Links: [GPLv3 information](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html) —
+[GPLv3 plain text](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt)
+
+Authors publishing software which is useful over a network - databases, web
+applications, and so on, should consider the "Affro" General Public License, or
+AGPL, as well: [AGPLv3 information](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html)
+— [AGPLv3 plain text](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt)
+
+SourceHut itself is distributed with the AGPLv3 license.
+
+## I want a simple license with few obligations.
+
+The MIT and BSD licenses allow anyone to use or modify your software for any
+purpose, or to make changes or incorporate it into their own software without
+releasing their source code. Both licenses are very short and easy to
+understand.
+
+[MIT license text](https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html)
+
+[BSD 3-clause license text](https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause.html)
+
+## I want to protect my company's trademarks and license my patents.
+
+If you're publishing software as a business, Apache 2.0 is likely to be the most
+appropriate license for your open-source project. It explicitly protects your
+trademarks and includes a patent license for any patents which are applicable to
+your project.
+
+[Apache 2.0 information](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html)
+— [Apache 2.0 plain text](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt)
+
+## Other resources
+
+- [Choose a License from GitHub](https://choosealicense.com/)
+- [Free Software Foundation recommendations](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/)
+- [The Open Source Initiative](https://opensource.org/)
+- [SPDX License Index](https://spdx.org/)
+- [tl;dr Legal](https://tldrlegal.com/)