The MIT License was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. The exact origins MIT license are bit of mystery. Like the Apache 2.0, and BSD family of licenses the MIT License is a permissive software license that places few restrictions of reuse. Users of software using an MIT License are permitted to use, copy, modify, merge publish, distribute, sublicense and sell copies of the software. Some notable projects use the MIT License including Ruby on Rails, and the X Windows System.
Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
The basic conditions of using the MIT License are:
1. The original copyright notice
2. A copy of the license itself
are including in all copies or any substantial portions of the software.
The MIT License is highly compatible with other permissive licenses. Including the BSD family of licenses. It is generally compatible with GNU GPL group of licenses. However if you distribute the code that contains or is derivative of GNU GPL code the final project must of GPL compliant. In other words any source code must of publicly available.
The MIT License was developed before patenting software was a common practice in the U.S. It therefore does not contain an express patent license. The broad nature of the license in general, is considered by some to encompass an implicit waiver of patent rights. If you are concerned about patent rights, the Apache 2.0 license contains an explicit contributor's patent license.
The MIT No Attribution License is a Public Domain equivalent license it is similar to the BSD Free license.
Copyright <YEAR><COPYRIGHT HOLDER>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
