Licensing in Open Source

Between BSD and GPL, I have to go with BSD. The BSD license is easy to understand and it is very permissive, offering freedoms to other developers to actually use the source code. GPL is so often touted by open source advocates, but the truth is, it offers little incentive for developers and the majority of users. One of the main points of the GPL is that a piece of software and any of its derivatives must be open source. That's great in some cases, but it's a poor way to earn money. Advocates almost always point their fingers at service and support as a way to make money off open source software and at Red Hat as an example of a successful company based on a GPL-licensed software. Red Hat makes most of their revenue off Linux sales (although you could legally obtain a free copy of Red Hat from anyone else who has already purchased it) and a smaller portion of revenue from service and support. As a result, their annual revenue is nowhere close to companies like Adobe, Activision, EA, Sun, or Oracle.

It wasn't listed as an option, but LGPL is also a fairly common and useful license. All of the open source licenses have their strengths, but GPL is best suited as a license for hobbyists, not businesses.