Why I'm Changing the License in Over 80 of My Code Repos After Talking to the Co-Creator of Fediverse

Like a lot of people new to coding and development, the amount of license options that were presented to me when I initialized my first git repository was confusing and overwhelming. *Apache License 2.0, Mozilla Public License 2.0, Boost Software License 1.0?* Just to name a few. I mean, we write code, we're not copyright lawyers.

There has been an effort made to make the process less confusing, such directing people to the site [Choose a License](https://choosealicense.com/), but dare I say, it's misleading.

Let me explain. (And don't worry, this applies to writers as well, read on.)

## Introduction: Why Choose a License?

Let me start at the very beginning: why even deal with this and choose a license in the first place? The answer is, in my opinion, wonderful in how ideal and Utopian it is.

By default, when we create something and share it, [the copyright is under exclusive copyright by default](https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/). This means that unless you explicitly include a license that specifies otherwise, nobody else can copy, distribute, or modify your work without being at risk of legal action. Even if you publish your code in a public repository on GitHub, while others can view and fork it, they *technically* don't have permission to use, modify, or share it for any purpose beyond that. But this is not what people choose when they create open-source code.

When you decide to have a public repository displaying your source code and choose an open-source license, you are making a declaration that you want your work to not only benefit you and the end-user, but everyone! You are allowing anybody to come by and tweak and build-upon the work you've done. Either to fork it into their own project, or to make a pull request and directly modify the codebase you began. Open source is about collaboration, about building on the shoulders of those who came before you, and letting others stand on yours.

It is principles like these that have allowed so much of the technology *everyone* uses to exist. So much of our modern technological infrastructure was created, and is reliant on, open-source software and its licensing. The [Apache HTTP Server](https://opensource.com/article/19/3/apache-projects) has been powering websites since 1995 and helped fuel the early growth of the World Wide Web. [Linux](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/) runs on everything from smartphones to supercomputers. The [web browsers](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/) we use, the [encryption](https://www.openssl.org/) that keeps our data safe, the [programming languages](https://www.python.org/) that power modern applications. All exist because developers chose to share their work under open licenses. Without open source, the internet as we know it wouldn't exist