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Sadly this didn´t really answer my question: When including libraries licenses, do I need to include the libraries' dependencies' licenses too?

If I use Library A which is MIT and Library A needs Library B which is also MIT, do I need to provide the texts for both Libraries in my UI?

The other question does not answer my question if I need to provide a copy of the license texts in my software.

Glenn Randers-Pehrson
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whymatter
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1 Answers1

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The MIT licence says

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

So the code that you received must have it, and all you need to do is leave it intact, if only in the source code, when you redistribute it.

If you are only distributing binary code, then include all of the licenses you are using (i.e., both of the MIT licenses) in your LICENSE.txt or whatever documentation you distribute along with your code. But note that (unlike the BSD licenses) the MIT license does not contain an explicit requirement to do anything other than maintaining the copyright and license in the source code, and makes no requirement to say anything to users via the UI or a LICENSE.txt document.

Glenn Randers-Pehrson
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  • And do you know how I have to act when I only provide a public web site which uses some libraries which have “deeper“ dependencies? So do I also have to provide a section on my web site which announces all the licenses? Because I am not sure if this is also counted as “binary code“ – whymatter Oct 25 '17 at 17:29
  • @whymatter See edit. The MIT license seems to make no requirement for a web site using MIT libraries to do anything other than preserving the copyright and license within the software itself. If you aren't distributing the software you probably don't need to worry about it. – Glenn Randers-Pehrson Oct 25 '17 at 22:42
  • @GlennRanders-Pehrson FWIW, when you use a JS library in a web site you are effectively redistributing it to every browser that uses the site. So in this case any JS library at full depth is eventually redistributed, all the way down.... and licensing applies all the way too, IMHO. – Philippe Ombredanne Oct 26 '17 at 10:20
  • @PhilippeOmbredanne licensing applies all the way too -> so I have to provide all license texts in my web ui or not? I dont get it. – whymatter Oct 26 '17 at 23:22
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    @whymatter there is no strict requirement in the MIT license to provide MIT license texts notices and copyrights in the UI (this is only for MIT and the UI). You still need to ensure that the MIT text is with the code (and the simplest is to include it in the code or in a separate linked UI document). Which is essentially what GlennRanders-Pehrson said here :) – Philippe Ombredanne Oct 27 '17 at 00:59
  • @PhilippeOmbredanne I was thinking that JS automatically included the source, being interpretive, but I've learned that there are JS "optimizers" or "compilers" that reduce the size of the script. You may have to take special measures to "preserve" the copyright/license info. – Glenn Randers-Pehrson Oct 27 '17 at 02:42
  • Good point: minified JS is as opaque as an ELf binary in practice. – Philippe Ombredanne Oct 27 '17 at 10:35
  • And what if the library includes no copyright notices of its dependencies? Should I include them myself in my project which uses the library? (and therefore, I guess, its dependencies) – Edw590 Nov 17 '21 at 12:59