The Open Source Initiative (OSI), an organization that verifies licenses for compliance with Open Source criteria, has published the results of its analysis on the popularity of open licenses based on the programming languages used in projects.
Overall, the most popular licenses are MIT and Apache 2.0. However, the preferences for licenses vary depending on the programming languages used. For projects using JavaScript, the MIT license is the most popular, while for projects using Python, the Apache 2.0 license takes the lead. The BSD license maintains a consistently high position but is not the top choice. The GPL license is also relatively common but is often overshadowed by MIT, Apache 2.0, and BSD.
The popularity of licenses for different programming languages is as follows:
- JavaScript (NPM repository)
- C#/.NET (nuget)
| License | Percentage |
|---|---|
| MIT | 53% |
| Apache 2.0 | 14.76% |
| ISC | 10.48% |
| No license indication | 13.49% |
| BSD-3 | 1.45% |
| GPLV3 | 0.46% |
Source: Open Source Initiative
| License | Percentage |
|---|---|
| No license specifying | 58.71% |
| MIT | 21.55% |
| Apache 2.0 | 13.37% |
| LGPLV3 | 1.33% |