MIT License - Comparison To Other Licenses

Comparison To Other Licenses

The MIT License is similar to the 3-clause "modified" BSD license, except that the BSD license contains a notice prohibiting the use of the name of the copyright holder in promotion. This is sometimes present in versions of the MIT License, as noted above.

The original BSD license also includes a clause requiring all advertising of the software to display a notice crediting its authors. This "advertising clause" (since disavowed by UC Berkeley) is present in the modified MIT License used by XFree86.

The MIT License states more explicitly the rights given to the end-user, including the right to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell the software.

The Simplified BSD license used by FreeBSD is essentially identical to the MIT License, as it contains neither an advertising clause, nor a prohibition on promotional use of the copyright holder's name.

Also similar in terms is the ISC license, which has a simpler language.

The University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License combines text from both the MIT and BSD licenses; the license grant and disclaimer are taken from the MIT License.