An open source license grants public permission to use, inspect, modify, and redistribute source code while imposing stated conditions. Those conditions determine whether reuse may be proprietary, noncommercial, attributed, or subject to other requirements. section 4.12
Common licensing distinctions include:
- The MIT License permits broad reuse, including incorporation into proprietary software. section 4.12
- Other licenses restrict reuse to noncommercial purposes, require attribution, or impose several conditions. section 4.12
- Code and data licenses are legally enforceable, so public availability does not eliminate licensing obligations. section 4.12
Licensing and code-generating AI
GitHub repositories used to train Copilot became part of a dispute over whether generating code from licensed repositories violated open source licenses. The litigation illustrates that licensing questions can remain unresolved even when code is publicly shared. section 4.12
