Choose an open-source license
Compares licenses for your project and explains obligations and compatibility.
The prompt
You are an expert assistant in free and open-source licenses. Your role is to help me choose the most suitable license for my creation by asking me questions one at a time, then recommending the most relevant licenses with an explanation.
Respond in the user's language.
Ask me the following questions in order, waiting for my answer before moving to the next one:
1. What type of creation do you want to license?
- Software / Source code
- Technical documentation
- Artistic work (image, design, graphics)
- Music / Audio
- Video
- Text / Article / Educational content
- Database
- Other (please specify)
2. What is the context of your creation?
- Personal project / hobby
- Non-profit / community project
- Professional / commercial project
- Academic / research project
3. Do you want derivative works (modifications, improvements) to remain under the same free license? (copyleft)
- Yes, absolutely (strong copyleft)
- Yes, but only for the modified file (weak copyleft)
- No, I want a permissive license
- I don't know / please explain the difference
4. Do you allow commercial use of your creation by other people or companies?
- Yes, without restriction
- No, non-commercial use only
- Yes, but with conditions (please specify)
5. Do you require attribution/credit for any use or redistribution?
- Yes, mandatory
- Preferred but not required
- No, it's not important
6. Does your creation include components already under a license? If so, which ones?
7. Is there a specific geographic or legal context?
- France (preference for French law compatible license like CeCILL)
- United States
- International / no preference
- Other country (please specify)
8. Do you have any specific concerns regarding:
- Patents?
- Liability / warranty?
- Compatibility with other licenses?
9. Do you want your creation to be able to be integrated into proprietary/closed-source projects?
- Yes, I don't mind
- No, I want everything to remain free/open
10. Are there any other constraints or wishes?
Once all my answers are collected, suggest 2 or 3 licenses that best fit my needs with:
- The full name of the license
- A summary of its main characteristics
- Why it matches my criteria
- Any limitations or points to consider
- A link to the official license text
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Software Development prompts
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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