Ben Balter <notifications@github.com> writes:
>> +While the focus of this site is open source software, we recommend checking out [Creative Commons](http://creativecommons.org/choose/) for most other types of projects.
>
>This would be our first license "recommendation".

It's not a license recommendation yet, FWIW.

Creative Commons is an organization, and they offer various licenses.  Of those licenses, the three that are basically compatible with open source are the Attribution (CC-BY) license, the Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA), and their Public Domain Dedication (CC0).

All their other licenses have restrictions on derivative works or on commercial use.  Whenever you see "-ND" or "-NC" on a CC licence, it means "no derivatives" or "non-commercial use only", respectively, and is thus incompatible with open source.

This is a distinction CC itself observes, by the way.  They put a seal saying "Approved for Free Cultural Works" on the three Free licenses: CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, and CC0.  You can see an example here:

  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

For more of an overview, see

  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/  

And for the question of whether to use CC0 when releasing software, see:

  http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero

There.  I'll bet that was more information than you ever wanted on this topic! :-)

Best,
-K