It is important to include a license with your data and code so that others know how they are legally allowed to use it. We recommend open source licenses as a way to maximize the ability for your code and data to be used. If you are using Github to host your code or data, see here for how to add a license.

Code licenses

Open source licenses for code fall into two categories: copyleft licenses, which require derivative works to use the same license, and permissive licenses, which do not require derivative works to remain closed source. The main copyleft license is the GPL, while there is a broader range of commonly used permissive licenses, such as MIT, BSD, and Apache.

Data licenses

When distributing data, you should make clear how it can be used. The most common family of data licenses are by Creative Commons ranging from the most permissive, CC0 to CC-BY which requires attribution, to CC-BY-SA which requires derivatives be shared, to CC-BY-SA-NC which prohibits commercial use.

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