Popular Open Source Licences
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Here is a list of popular Open Source Licences
— Hardware
- CERN Open Hardware Licence v1.2 (CERN OHL v1.2)
- Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
- Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Solderpad Hardware License v0.51 (SHL v0.51)
- TAPR Open Hardware License 1.0 (TAPR OHL 1.0)
— Software
- Apache License 2.0
- GNU General Public License v3 (GNU GPL v3)
- GNU Lesser GPL 3.0
- MIT License
- New BSD License
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When it comes to hardware documentation and software source code there is no one size fits all and licences tend to be best suited to one or the other.
You could publish design materials and software etc. and simply state that people are free to use it as they wish, but even though this may seem straightforward enough it can lead to misunderstandings and legal uncertainty for both parties.