Which license for my example code?

I'm planning to put some code on Github that I will use to show my grandson some examples using the Arduino. I have no plans to commercialize this and there is really nothing to protect. If someone finds them useful - great! If no one ever looks at it, no loss. It will have served the intended purpose. (Perhaps some day I will be able to add my grandson as a committer. :wink: Or his younger sister. Or his younger brother. :smiley: )

Is there any benefit to adding a license? Any concerns with choosing something incompatible with the Arduino ecosystem?

My inclination is to go with something permissive like MIT or BSD. Or should I just not bother with a license?

Thanks!

Is there any benefit to adding a license?

In my opinion no.

The only concern might be if you want to try and protect yourself from some idiot trying to sue you for something stupid he did, by adding a disclaimer.

HankB:
Is there any benefit to adding a license?

Yes. In the U.S. with no explicit license the implicarion is all rights reserved / full copyright protection. The only exception is for the federal government.

Thanks. It seems to make my code officially open, I need a license. I went with MIT with beer clause.

BTW I like both of your user names. I identify with both. (I lack sufficient imagination to come up with better for myself.)

In most parts of the world you automatically own the copyright to whatever you produce, and it is not allowed to copy/redistribute/reproduce without permission.
In many cases this permission can be implicit (e.g. when you send a letter to the editor of a newspaper, you implicitly allow them to publish this in their paper) - posting on Github may indeed be argued to be an implicit permission to copy/reuse the code in question.
If it is your intention to put it out there for general use, I'd say give it a license to make this explicitly clear. BSD/MIT licenses are great for that (it basically says "do whatever you like with this code, as long as you don't say it's you who wrote it").
The international nature of the Internet complicates things big time. If you post it on a place like Github, does it fall under the copyright of the country Github is incorporated, the country where the servers are, the country you live in, or the country of the one that wants to download and use the code?
By the way, publishing code under the BSD license AND commercialising a product are not mutually exclusive.

...does it fall under the copyright of the country Github is incorporated...

Because Github presents content into the U.S. the material is subject to U.S. copyright law (country of incorporation is irrelevant as is the author's citizenship). So, the answer is "yes". U.S. copyright captures anyone who publishes in the U.S.

...posting on Github may indeed be argued to be an implicit permission to copy/reuse the code in question...

What agreement do you have with Github? That will describe such things. (Assuming the Github lawyers are reasonably competent.) (Did you read that agreement? :smiling_imp: )

The answer is actually "no". In the absence of a license, you and I do not have permission to copy/reuse (except by the fair-use clause). But Github does have permission to publish (by the terms of the account).

If you want (U.S.) people to be able to use your source code then you need to tell them that (with a license agreement).