Thomas A. Alspaugh
Black Duck list

Black Duck publishes its list of Top 20 Most Commonly Used Licenses in Open Source Projects, said to be updated daily. Black Duck's list does not distinguish the two versions of the Artistic License.

Rank 2010-02-17 2011-07-15
1. GPLv2 48.98 GPLv2 45.08
2. LGPLv2.1 ↘ 9.37 Artistic 8.49
3. Artistic ↗ 9.06 MIT 8.22
4. BSD ↘ 6.26 LGPLv2.1 7.95
5. GPLv3 5.43 GPLv3 6.82
6. Apache v2.0 ↘ 4.00 BSD 6.25
7. MIT ↗ 3.99 Apache v2.0 4.96
8. CPOL v1.02 3.15 CPOL v1.02 2.40
9. Ms-PL 1.45 Ms-PL 1.82
10. MPL1.1 1.22 MPL1.1 1.13
11. CPL v1.0 ↘ 0.56 LGPLv3 0.77
12. EPL 1.0 0.46 EPL 1.0 0.73
13. zlib/libpng ↘ 0.44 CPL v1.0 0.45
14. LGPLv3 ↗ 0.43 zlib/libpng 0.36
15. AFL v3.0 0.40 AFL v3.0 0.35
16. OSL v3.0 ↘ 0.32 CDDL v1.0 0.33
17. CDDL v1.0 ↗ 0.31 OSL v3.0 0.25
18. MPL1.0 0.27 MPL1.0 0.21
19. PHP v3.0 ↘ 0.24 Ruby 0.21
20. Ruby ↗ 0.24 Ms-RL 0.20
Name 2010-
02-17 		2011-
07-15
AFL v3.0 0.40 ↘ 0.35
Apache v2.0 4.00 ↗ 4.96
Artistic 9.06 ↘ 8.49
BSD 6.26 ↘ 6.25
CDDL v1.0 0.31 ↗ 0.33
CPL v1.0 0.56 ↘ 0.45
CPOL v1.02 3.15 ↘ 2.40
EPL 1.0 0.46 ↗ 0.73
GPLv2 48.98 ↘ 45.08
GPLv3 5.43 ↗ 6.82
LGPLv2.1 9.37 ↘ 7.95
LGPLv3 0.43 ↗ 0.77
MIT 3.99 ↗ 8.22
MPL1.0 0.27 ↘ 0.21
MPL1.1 1.22 ↘ 1.13
Ms-PL 1.45 ↗ 1.82
Ms-RL — ↗ 0.20
OSL v3.0 0.32 ↘ 0.25
PHP v3.0 0.24 ↘ —
zlib/libpng 0.44 ↘ 0.36
Ruby 0.24 ↘ 0.21

2010-02-17

Baseline. The first five licenses total 79.10%; the first 20 total 96.58%.

2011-07-15

PHP v3.0 has fallen out of the top 20 and Ms-RL (almost identical to Ms-PL) has entered it.

GPLv2's share, which was reported to be over 50% several years ago, continues to decline and is now about 45%, down by 8%. Its companion strong-copyleft license LGPLv2.1 declines as well, even more steeply by 15%, so that the share of the two strong copyleft licenses has gone from about 57% to about 53%.

The academic MIT license, in contrast, more than doubled its share to over 8%, by far the biggest point increase and the biggest factor as well.

The new GPL licenses, GPLv3 and LGPLv3, also increased in share though not nearly so much.

Other licenses with notable increases in share were EPL, Apache 2, and perhaps surprisingly Ms-PL. CDDL increased its share marginally, BSD remained virtually the same, and all others in the top 20 fell.

The first five licenses now total 76.56%, down from 79.10%; the first 20 total 96.98%, up slightly from 96.58%.

flip bgunflip 

  1. AFL 3.0
  2. AGPLv3
  3. Apache 1.0
  4. Apache 1.1
  5. Apache 2.0
  6. APL 1.0
  7. Artistic 2.0
  8. AWS
  9. BSD
  10. BSD 4-clause
  11. BSD 4.3 "Tahoe"
  12. CC-BY-SA1.3
  13. CC0 1.0
  14. CDDL 1.0
  15. Chromium
  16. CPAL 1.0
  17. CPL 1.0
  18. CPOL
  19. CTL
  20. ECL 2.0
  21. Eclipse 1.0
  22. GFDLv1.3
  23. Google Apps ToS
  24. GPLv2
  25. GPLv3
  26. IPA Font 1.0
  27. LGPLv2.1
  28. LGPLv3
  29. libjpeg 8c
  30. MIT
  31. MPL 1.0
  32. MPL 1.1
  33. Ms-PL
  34. Ms-RL
  35. NASA 1.3
  36. OFL 1.1
  37. OSL 3.0
  38. PDDL 1.0
  39. PHP 3.0
  40. QPL 1.0
  41. Ruby
  42. SCSL 2.8
  43. UDK 2010-03
  44. UDK 2011-02
  45. Unity 3.x
  46. zlib/libpng