license references

[wally]

Our open source app uses the CEGUI prebuilt SDK, dynamically linked.
(Ships with CEGUIBase.dll, CEGUIExpatParser.dll, CEGUIFalagardWRBase.dll, no CEGUI source code or even headers)

We give CEGUI a mention in our Credits menu, but the full licensing needs has always been unclear to me

When we use CEGUI like this, what licenses do we need to include in our packaged app?
- CEGUI (from COPYING file, README file, or both) ?
- dependency licenses?

And in what form?
Can they be just the text files somewhere within the application's folders?
i.e. does there need to a reference to the license(s) somewhere that the application user sees easily (e.g. in menus, installer notice etc)?

Thanks

[scriptkid]

Hi,

Good question. The MIT license is very unrestrictive, and since you ship no sources, you don't have to do anything. Mentioning it in the your menus is much appreaciated though

It might be true, that you need to add the LGPL licence for the xml parser, but you should double-check this.

HTH.

[CrazyEddie]

Hi,

I thought I'd better wade in here also

First a disclaimer - I'm no "license lawyer"; what I state here is just a mixture of my opinion and my interpretation of the licenses. If you're in any real doubt, you might consider the advice of a legal professional.

As I understand it, you must comply with the licenses for all the components that you directly, or indirectly, use. For CEGUIBase, this is CEGUI itself, PCRE and FreeType2. Which other licenses you need to consider will depend upon which of the other 'modules' you use (such as XML parsers, renderer modules, image codecs and so on - I know you were specific about the ones you use, but I wanted this to be a more general 'advice' on the subject ).

Ok. So how do you interpret the licenses? Some things, like FreeType2 require some kind of attribution / credit. So you'd perhaps include a line such as:

The Freetype 2 Font Engine
Portions of this software are copyright © 2008 The FreeType Project
(www.freetype.org). All rights reserved.

Most of the licenses for most of the libs we use are pretty short and clear - they're kind of MIT / BSD style things where you need to include a copyright notice, a list of three or four 'conditions' and a disclaimer.

What I would suggest is to have an 'acknowledgements' page, either as part of the 'credits' in the app itself, or as part of the documentation (either is acceptable as I understand things. For example, in the binary CELayoutEditor for the Mac, I included an acknowledgements.txt file that attempts to cover all the bases for that particular build/config of the app).

So to summarise / reiterate a little, you need to comply with the licenses for all components you use directly or indirectly.

If I've confused things, I apologise - let me know and I'll have another attempt.

CE.

[wally]

Thanks for the info CE, that does clarify things.

So I've included the CEGUI COPYING file and the Expat license file in our "license" directory, and added the standard Freetype acknowledgement / copyright blurb to our app's main license file.

I believe that's all I have to do given that we ship with CEGUIBase.dll, CEGUIExpatParser.dll, CEGUIFalagardWRBase.dll. (Falagard WR is covered under CEGUI license I assume). All those other dependencies (Corona, Freeglut, FreeImage, Lua, SILLY, Xerces) aren't being linked with by the above DLLs.

[CrazyEddie]

Hi,

I think you might have to include (parts of?) the PCRE license too

It's the BSD license, and the second condition states:

* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

HTH

CE.

[wally]

My bad: I had actually included a "PCRELicense.txt" file in our "license" folder too, just forgot to mention that one in my last post.

The installers reference our app's primary license file, and the latter says

Other 3rd party products are used within this software and
their licenses are also included in this directory as appropriate.

I was hoping that was explicit enough.

[CrazyEddie]

That may be enough I think this is the point where we get into the nasty technicalities of what does and does not constitute compliance.

If it were my lib, I'd probably say that it's ok. I guess if you're still in any doubt you could email the PCRE people and get clarification

CE.