Overview of free software licenses (for dummies)

Question

Does anyone know of a reference that explains the different open-source licenses in easily understandable, non-legalese terms?

Specifically I'm looking for information about what it means to me when I'd like to use and redistribute some (open-source) library with my own products, e.g. something like this:

• a library distributed under license X
  • can be modified, used and redistributed without restrictions, even in commercial, closed-source products
• a library distributed under license Y
  • may not be modified, but can be redistributed with a commercial, closed-source products
  • it is required to mention the fact that a product makes use of that library (e.g. by adding some license file, etc)
• a library distributed under license Z
  • may only be used by projects which are also distributed under the same license

Answer 1

There's a list there, with a FAQ: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/

In your case, I think that X=public domain, Y=some commercial licenses, Z=GPL (modified BSD is similar to Y, but you are allowed to modify them).

The licenses themselves are fairly readable.