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License Generator

Pick an open source or Creative Commons license, fill in the year and copyright holder, and copy or download a ready to commit LICENSE file.

Open-source license generator

Pick a license

The text on the right shows the canonical body for the license you choose, with your copyright details filled in.

Copyright details

Year the copyright is asserted. Use a range like 2023-2026 if the project has been maintained over multiple years.

The legal name of the person or entity that holds the copyright. Multiple holders can be listed on separate lines.

Enter a holder, otherwise the LICENSE will contain a placeholder.

This license does not reference a project name.

At a glance

Short, permissive license. Anyone can use the code for almost anything as long as they keep the copyright notice. No patent grant. Most popular OSS license on GitHub.

Best for: Libraries, small projects, and most personal repositories where you want maximum adoption with minimal friction.

Permissions

  • Commercial use
  • Modification
  • Distribution
  • Private use

Conditions

  • Preserve copyright and license notice

Limitations

  • No warranty
  • No liability

Reference: https://opensource.org/license/mit. This summary is a quick recap and is not legal advice.

LICENSE file preview

LICENSE - 22 lines, 1075 characters

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 <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.

License selection is your decision. This tool emits the canonical text published by each license's steward and fills in the year, holder, and project fields you provide. Everything runs in your browser and no input is uploaded. The summary blocks are a quick orientation, not legal advice. When in doubt, consult a qualified lawyer or your organisation's legal team.

How to use

  1. Pick a license from the cards at the top. Each card shows the SPDX identifier, the category, and a short summary so you can compare options at a glance.
  2. Enter the copyright year and copyright holder. For licenses that reference a project name (GPL, Creative Commons), enter that too. Fields that are not used by the chosen license are disabled.
  3. Read the at a glance panel to confirm the permissions you grant, the conditions you require, and the limitations the license carries.
  4. Use Copy LICENSE or Download LICENSE to save the file at the root of your repository. For Apache 2.0 and GPL-3.0, copy the source file header snippet and paste it at the top of each source file in your language's comment syntax.
  5. Commit the LICENSE file. GitHub, GitLab, npm, and other registries detect the license automatically from a file named LICENSE or UNLICENSE at the repository root.

About this tool

License Generator builds the LICENSE file that every open source repository needs. Pick a license from the curated catalog (MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD 2-Clause, BSD 3-Clause, ISC, GPL-3.0, GPL-2.0, LGPL-3.0, AGPL-3.0, MPL-2.0, Boost 1.0, The Unlicense, CC0 1.0, CC BY 4.0, and CC BY-SA 4.0), enter the copyright year, the copyright holder name, and (for licenses that use it) the project name, and the tool emits the canonical license body with your values substituted into the official placeholder slots. Each license card shows the SPDX identifier, the category (permissive, weak copyleft, strong copyleft, public domain, or Creative Commons), a short summary, the projects it is best suited for, and a colour-coded at-a-glance grid of permissions (commercial use, modification, distribution, private use, patent grant), conditions (preserve the notice, state changes, disclose source, same license, credit the author), and limitations (no warranty, no liability, no trademark grant). The output panel shows the full LICENSE body in a syntax-friendly preview, reports the line and character count, and offers one-click Copy and Download buttons that save the file using the conventional name (LICENSE for most licenses, UNLICENSE for The Unlicense). For licenses that publish a per-file source header (Apache 2.0 and GPL-3.0), a second snippet panel renders the short notice you can paste at the top of each source file, wrapped in your language's comment syntax. The license texts are the canonical, unmodified bodies as published by the stewards (OSI, Apache Software Foundation, Free Software Foundation, Mozilla, Creative Commons); the tool only fills in the documented year, holder, and project placeholders. The license summary blocks are a quick orientation, not legal advice. Everything runs locally in your browser, so your name, project name, and chosen license never leave the page.

Free to use. Works in your browser. No signup, no login.

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