Libraries licenses in proprietary product [duplicate]

Question

This question already has answers here:

If I use multiple third party components, using several different open source licenses, how should I attribute them? (2 answers)

Closed 5 years ago.

Our closed-source proprietary web application uses quite a lot of libraries with different licenses (namely Apache 2.0, MIT, BSD-like, LGPL 2.1, etc). We want to distribute binaries (ear files, specifically) together with these libraries' jars.

If I understand correctly, most of the licenses demand from the distributor to put libraries licenses into the distribution package.

This problem must come up all the time. Is there a standard/canonical way to do this? As I saw in other projects (e.g. PostgreSQL), there does not appear a standard way to specify the list of licenses. Is it sufficient to put somewhere all the licenses and the list of libraries and which library is issued under each license?

UPDATE: In the comments the link to the similar question was posted and if i get it correctly, i need to put library license file and 'NOTICE' file. Is there a standard way of doing it? For example, in PostgreSQL there's one big file for all licenses. Also what should i put in 'NOTICE' file?

Answer 1

There is no standard way to mention which licenses are used by the third-party libraries that you use. This has to do with the different requirements that licenses place on this.

For some licenses(like BSD), it is possible that the license text is only present as a comment in the source code, while other licenses (like GPL and Apache) are so lengthy that the full license text is distributed in a separate file.

A good strategy to deal with this is the following

• For each library you use, check if there is a file containing just the license information and if there are any other files that the license requires you to include (such as a NOTICES file for the Apache license). Put these files together in a 'licenses' folder. If necessary, rename the files to make it clear what licence is contained in it.
• Mention in your documentation which libraries you use and under which license they are distributed
• Distribute the content of the 'licenses' folder together with your application.