Hey, I’m new to Vaadin and want to use multiple addons to improve my project, some are under MIT license, some under apache license.
From what I saw online, I need to include a copy of the license detailing it for each addon, but I’m not sure what the best way to do that in a vaadin project is.
Do I even need to include such licenses? Maybe addon imports already include the notice somehow?
Maybe I need to have a NOTICE file with a list of all addons in the root of the project directory, and with each addon listed in the file, its respective license appended?
If someone more experienced can enlighten me, I would appreciate it
MIT and Apache licenses are “compatible”. Also Vaadin framework itself is released under Apache 2.0 license. There are minor differences, but both are belonging to the same category of open source licenses, which do not have copyleft clause like GPL and its derivates have.
That sounds great, but don’t these licenses bind me to do something? The MIT license says I should include the text of the license in my project/product, so should I include such licenses in my project directory? Does Vaadin handle addon licenses automatically somehow?
Basically, after adding the addon to the .pom file and using it in my .java code, do I need to do something else?
The “include text” part means if you edit the project itself, then you should still have the license in the project. Eg. if you edit project Foo, then you should not remove the license file but keep it. However if you only make use of Foo, then your own code does not need to follow this rule, as you do not modify the product.
They are both very liberal licenses and you don’t need to do much.
MIT allows you to use it commercially, modify it, distribute it, sublicense it and use it for private purposes. What you cannot do is hold the creator liable of something that happens in relation to the software. Eg. you build a nuclear reactor system with Foo, then you can’t sue the creator of Foo if something goes wrong with your nuclear reactor. You also can’t remove the license files or copyrights within the product.
Apache 2.0 is pretty much the same as MIT, with the exception that it protects the original trademark. That means that you can still fork Vaadin, slap a price tag on it and sell it, but you can’t call it Vaadin anymore. You have to rename the product to Nidaav or something.
So the long story short, do almost what ever you want with what is licensed under Apache-2.0, as long as you don’t call your product “Vaadin” (use trademark) or you sue the creator of Vaadin for a bug in it (hold liable).
I know I’m repeating a bit, so apologies in advance.
You say I don’t need to “include text” if I don’t edit the project, I assume you mean that if I don’t change the addon’s code, I don’t need to add the license/copyright text, that sounds like it kind of conflicts with the legal summaries that don’t mention such a prerequisite, but if you think it’s fine, I will rely on your experience rather than my subpar reading comprehension
