Apache License 2.0
Like MIT, but with an explicit patent grant and contribution terms.
Commercial use
✓ Yes
Modify
✓ Yes
Distribute
✓ Yes
Must open source changes
✗ No
Must attribute
✓ Yes
Patent grant
✓ Yes
What this license means
Apache 2.0 is a permissive license similar to MIT but with two important additions: an explicit patent grant (contributors give you a license to any patents their code implements) and a contribution clause (anyone who submits a change implicitly agrees to these terms). Popular with corporate-backed projects.
When you encounter this license
Use Apache-licensed tools the same way as MIT — freely in any project. The patent grant gives you extra legal protection. If you're choosing between MIT and Apache for your own project, Apache is the safer choice for anything that might touch patents.
Watch out for
You must include the NOTICE file if one exists (many Apache projects have one). If you modify the code, you must state that you changed it. The patent grant terminates if you file a patent lawsuit against the project.
Tools using Apache License 2.0 (146)
Kubernetes-based scale-to-zero compute
Development environment for Android Jetpack extension libraries under the androidx namespace. Synchronized with Android Jetpack's primary development branch on AOSP.
Domain-specific language designed to streamline the development of high-performance GPU/CPU/Accelerators kernels
Open-source subscription billing platform
A large scale non-linear optimization library
An open-source Collaborative Multi-Agent OS for transparent, human-in-the-loop task coordination via Matrix rooms.
Google Gen AI Python SDK provides an interface for developers to integrate Google's generative models into their Python applications.
Application lifecycle orchestration
The production-scale datacenter profiler (C/C++, Go, Rust, Python, Java, NodeJS, .NET, PHP, Ruby, Perl, ...)
OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation and instrumentation libraries for Java
Sub-millisecond VM sandboxes for AI agents via copy-on-write forking
不用命令行，小白也能轻松玩转 OpenClaw
Sandboxes for every agent — embeddable, stateful, with snapshots and hardware isolation.
Kernel-enforced agent sandbox and security CLI/SDKs with capability-based isolation.
Python Streaming DataFrames for Kafka
Making SLOs with Prometheus manageable, accessible, and easy to use for everyone!
This guide is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For licensing decisions in commercial products, consult a qualified attorney.