How to choose a documentation license

The documentation released under the license allows the author to specify what actions the user is allowed to do. For example, can I copy, distribute, modify and use for commercial purposes?

The following are popular licenses developed by the non-profit organization Creative Commons in order from most permissive to most restrictive in terms of user experience.

List of licenses with permissions, conditions and prohibitions

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) allows you to copy, distribute, modify and use for commercial purposes, provided that the author is credited, a link to the license is added and the changes made are indicated.

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) may be copied, distributed, modified and used for commercial purposes, provided that the author is credited, a link to the license is added, changes made are indicated and following the same license.

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) may be copied, distributed and used for commercial purposes, provided that the author is credited and a link to the license is added. Forbids distributing the modified version.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) permits copying, distribution and modification, provided that the author is credited, a link to the license is added and the changes made are indicated. It is forbidden to use for commercial purposes.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) permits copying, distribution and modification, provided that the author is credited, a link to the license is added, the changes made are indicated and following the same license. It is forbidden to use for commercial purposes.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) permits copying and redistribution provided that the author is credited and a link to the license is added. It is forbidden to use for commercial purposes and distribute the modified version.

For documentation developer

In order for site users to know under which license the documentation is released, you need to add license information to the site. Often the license is listed at the bottom of the site or at the end of the article.

You can specify a license for a site like this:

All content on this site is released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license

You can specify a license for an article like this:

This work is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0

For documentation user

In order for users to find the original source, the user distributing documentation released under a license must indicate attribution.

Attribution is an indication of the title of the work, author, license and changes made (if any).

Attribution example:

"How to choose a documentation license" by web-mastering.blogspot.com, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 / new licenses added

"How to choose a documentation license" by web-mastering.blogspot.com, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0