software licences

i'd like to provide me with links to help me understand
the foggy area of software licenses.

e.g.
if i want to provide a software project completely
free does the OS licence suffice?
Do i have only to include the license with my software
so that it is complies with it?
To restrict my software to be only free is the GPL sufficient?
What responsibilities does the original author have?

I've read several licenses at Open Source Initiative but it doesn't give any info on how to get
started and what actions shoulde be taken.

sorry if this post is a little off-topic,
but i couldn't find a more appropriate forum

thanks

Did you read about the GPL (General Public License) ? If not try reading from The GNU Site .

You can read about LGPL (Lesser General Public License) too, it's very interesting, read it here

I went to the GNU website,read the General Public Licence and I think its great to have it on my programs.
I had come across this earlier too,DJ Delorie have it on all their stuff,also on thier C++ compiler,but I never paid much attention to it.
My doubt is,how do I exactly get the license for a product?
This is what the site said-
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

So,do I have to get a copyright too,or just adding the documentation of the licence in the program is enough???

Can't v have a free licence for a free software product without providing the source code?