The MIT License is a permissive free software license originated at MIT. The license allows anyone to do whatever they wish with it as long as the original copyright and license is preserved in their respective sources. The license is GPL-compatible, allowing GPL-licensed code to be combined and redistributed with it.

Overview

Can Do	Cannot Do	Must Do
The work can be used for commercial purposes	You cannot hold the author liable; The work is provided "as is"	The copyright must be included with all copies of the work
The work can be modified		The license must be included with all copies of the work
The work can be redistributed
The work can be used with more restrictive license
The work can be used for private use

Terms

The license is most commonly distributed in the following form, as found on the Open Source Initiative website:

Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>

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.

Note that the license differs from the official X11 license by 4 words:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next paragraph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Inclusion in Code

The easiest way to bundle the license with the code is to include it at the top of the source code in the form of a comment, for example:

/*
 * Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
 *
 * 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.
 */

External links

• The MIT License (MIT) on the OSI website