licensing open-source-software
Where to include CC BY 3.0, CC BY 4.0, SIL OFL 1.1 attribution for a mobile app?
<p>I want to cite the following</p>
<ul>
<li>One SoundBible Sound <a href="https://soundbible.com/1601-Mario-Jumping.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">found here</a>: Attribution 3.0</li>
<li>FontAwesome5 <a href="https://fontawesome.com/license/free" rel="nofollow noreferrer">(free license info)</a> (used via <a href="https://github.com/oblador/react-native-vector-icons" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>react-native-vector-icons</code></a>): <code>react-native-vector-icons</code> uses the TTF files so I'm assuming it's released under <a href="https://tldrlegal.com/license/open-font-license-(ofl)-explained" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SIL OFL 1.1</a></li>
</ul>
<p>My questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should I include attribution text (author name, source url) and links to the license fulltext in a popup in the app?</p>
</li>
<li><p>Should I include the attribution text or fulltext of the licenses of these assets in a <code>LICENSE.txt</code> file in my project?</p>
</li>
<li><p>If yes to 2️⃣, should I also include the fulltext of licenses of my project's production dependencies and sub-dependencies inthe <code>LICENSE.txt</code>?</p>
</li>
<li><p>The <a href="https://fontawesome.com/license/free" rel="nofollow noreferrer">FontAwesome License info page</a> states that the attribution information is already packaged into the source files that are downloaded and there is no further action to be taken in terms of attribution. I don't see where this information is when I look in the <a href="https://github.com/oblador/react-native-vector-icons" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>react-native-vector-icons</code></a> repository. If it is included in the asset files somehow, does that mean I don't need to add any attribution in my app and <code>LICENSE.txt</code>?</p>
</li>
<li><p>Since I use <a href="https://github.com/oblador/react-native-vector-icons" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>react-native-vector-icons</code></a> which has an MIT License, should I be concerned at all about FontAwesome's license considering it's a sub-dependency?</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p>In your application, you must comply with all the licenses of all the components that you include in the app, i.e. where the user receives a copy of that component in any form. This also applies to transitive dependencies – you must comply with the licenses of any components that you include directly or indirectly.</p>
<p>Nearly all Open Source licenses require that you provide basic attribution and the entire license text in a human-readable form with your app. The details depend on the license, though. Some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>CC BY 3.0</strong> lists attribution requirements for unmodified copies in section 4(b) of the license:</p>
<ul>
<li>you must keep intact attribution notices</li>
<li>additionally, you must provide the following in a reasonable manner:
<ul>
<li>name of the Original Author</li>
<li>title of the work</li>
<li>URI for the work</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, you are required to provide the license text or a link to the license per section 4(a). In media where this is impossible, the name or the logo of the license would also be sufficient.</p>
<p>You may not prevent users from exercising their rights under this license, for example by using DRM techniques to prevent them from extracting CC-licensed assets.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Typical permissive licenses like <strong>ISC, MIT, BSD</strong> require you to retain the copyright + license notice in the code, and to give the user a copy of the entire notice.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>Apache-2.0</strong> has detailed attribution requirements. You must give recipients a copy of the license. You must also give appropriate access to the contents of the NOTICE file, if it exists.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>OFL-1.1</strong> allows you to keep notices in the font metadata:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Original or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or in the appropriate machine-readable metadata fields within text or binary files as long as those fields can be easily viewed by the user.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>FontAwesome claims that they have included the license notices inside the font metadata, for the versions that they distribute. But when the font is embedded in a mobile app, I'd have doubts whether this metadata can be“easily viewed” by the user. It would be safer to show the notices to the user yourself.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Many apps handle licenses by including a screen or webview in their settings where users can read the entire list of license notices. Good examples of this are mobile web browsers like Chrome or Firefox.</p>
<p>If you are using a particular bundling tool to build your application, it may be able to assist with generating a list of licenses for all components. For example, the JavaScript ecosystem has the <code>yarn licenses</code> tool. But such tools are only as good as package metadata. Such metadata might be incomplete, and of course doesn't cover assets that you're including manually.</p>
<p>While you are required to provide all of these notices for built/binary versions of your app, you are not required to put all of that into a LICENSE.txt file in your source code.</p>
