2024's Top Open Source Licenses: Insights from OSI
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has unveiled its list of the most popular open-source licenses for 2024, drawing from user engagement on its enriched license pages. The MIT License led the pack with 1.7 million pageviews and 1 million unique visitors, followed by the BSD 3-Clause, Apache 2.0, and BSD 2-Clause licenses. These licenses remain dominant choices for open-source projects due to their simplicity, flexibility, and widespread adoption.
Other notable licenses include the GNU General Public Licenses (GPL) versions 2.0 and 3.0, the ISC License, and the Lesser General Public Licenses (LGPL) versions 2.1 and 3.0. The top 20 OSI-approved licenses collectively demonstrate the diverse preferences of developers and organizations seeking tailored legal frameworks for their projects.
Looking ahead to 2025, the OSI plans to introduce further enhancements to its license pages, adding user-centric features and metadata to better serve developers, project maintainers, and newcomers to open source. For those interested in supporting these efforts, OSI encourages donations and sponsorships.
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Disclosure: This content is produced with the assistance of AI.