= Choosing An Open Source License =

When releasing code as open source for the first time, you'll need to choose a license.

/!\ If releasing previously proprietary code Canonical staff must follow the internal process specific to that situation.

|| Situation || License || (For Canonical Launchpad developers) Is management signoff needed ||
|| Server side specific code || [[http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html|AGPLv3]] '3.0 only' || No ||
|| Client side or general purpose code || [[http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-3.0.html|GPLv3]] '3.0 only' || No ||
|| Code that needs to integrate tightly into some external project / has compatibility constraints || Discuss on the launchpad-dev list || Yes ||

That said, generally we use [[http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html|AGPLv3]] if it's server-side code, and [[http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-3.0.html|GPLv3]] for anything else.  Never the '''or later''' versions, just an exact version number of the license.