licensing open-source-software
Do I need to include the full text of the MIT license in the UI of my app?
<p>We're using <a href="https://github.com/felHR85/UsbSerial" rel="noreferrer">an open-source software library</a> which is distributed under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License" rel="noreferrer">the MIT license</a>. The key line of the license is as follows:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I know that if we were to use their source code in our app, and/or if our app was open-source, we would need to include the MIT license text file along with the source code we got from them.</p>

<p>However, our app does not use their source code. Our app uses the pre-compiled version of their library, and our sources are <em>not</em> available outside our company. <strong>Do we need to provide a way for the end user to read the full text of the MIT license?</strong></p>

<p>You don't <em>have</em> to, but you probably want to for a couple of reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It's courteous, and in the spirit of open source</p>
<p>It's someone else's work, and you're using it. The least you can probably say is &quot;thank you.&quot; It will also probably help you stay in the clear: since you're using software in binary form, where the notice isn't immediately accessible, then by providing a copy of the license, you respect that licensing term in another way.</p>
</li>
<li><p>It tells your users what's up with the program</p>
<p>Let's admit it, having the license accessible to the users tells them what's in the program and so on. It's another way of providing attribution, like I listed in the first reason above. Many apps, desktop and mobile, have a screen or panel to indicate the projects and licenses that they use. They don't have to be straight in the user's face, they can be a little button in the &quot;About&quot; screen of the program.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>To answer a little confusion: the binaries are still a derived form from that source code. Analyse the heading:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The software is still there, it's just there in a different form, a compiled form. Therefore, the copyright and permission notice should probably stick around, even if it's just a file somewhere.</p>
