LicensesMIT
PermissiveOSI Approved
MIT License
The shortest mainstream open source license: broad permission, one notice obligation, almost no friction.
Minimal friction for libraries, tooling, SDKs, and commercial adoption.
Family
Permissive
Reciprocity
None
Patent Grant
Not explicit
Closed Source
Allowed
What It Lets You Do
- Commercial use, private use, modification, redistribution, and sublicensing.
- Bundling inside proprietary software without source disclosure.
- Forking and relicensing downstream copies under different commercial terms.
What It Requires
- Keep the copyright notice and license text with substantial portions of the software.
- Do not remove the warranty disclaimer.
Advantages
- Maximizes adoption, especially for infrastructure packages and SDKs.
- Very easy for legal teams to approve.
- Works well when your moat is execution, services, or brand rather than code control.
Tradeoffs
- Gives you almost no reciprocity leverage.
- Patent expectations rely on context rather than explicit grant language.
- Downstream companies can commercialize without contributing back.
Restrictions And Gotchas
- No patent grant is expressed in the license text.
- No trademark rights are granted.
- Everything is provided without warranty or liability protection beyond the disclaimer.