For my app that I'm about to release, I have used a bunch of 3rd party classes found for free online. I checked all the liscenses before using the code and each one said I could use the code commercially So now what I'm concerned about is do I have to give credit somewhere in my app to the creater of that class?
Also, I plan on having my app be free, but if in the future I charge for it, does that change things?
The most common license I see in an MIT License:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files
(the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction,
including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software,
and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS
BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
The part I'm unsure about is:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
Is it enough for this license to be at the top of the class file embedded in the binary, or do I have to make it literally accessible to the user?
Of course I'm not asking for expert legal advice, but any help would be appreciated.
Best Answer
This link might help you. If because it only says that the notice needs to be included in the software, putting in the source code should be fine.
Also, you do not really need to give credit to anyone else unless they ask you too (and if they wanted you to they'd make it evident when you download their code).