Re: [ft-devel] Sublicensing and crediting FreeType2 in a DLL

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Hi Werner, thanks for your answer. 

Well, i think youre right the splah screen will be annoying. I also thought of making a license.txt part of the redistributeable (and make the  DLL create that file if it does not exist). Or i could do a combination of that, display a splash screen only at the first run and point to the file. But that leaves the question what belongs to the documentation.

Im using a simple custom license, i could insert a crediting clause. However some users may overlook that part.

I think that distributing FreeType inside a redistributeable library is not fully covered by the current license, if i strictly follow the license terms im only required to credit FreeType with only a copyright inside my documentation because i distribute in binary form. The users of my software do not have to do anything to redistribute my software. Or at least they do not know about it and im not required to tell them. I dont think that this is intended.

Best regards
Bastian

:

However, i do not want them run intro licensing issues and thought
of crediting FreeType2 in a splash screen at startup of any
application using the engine.  Most BSD style licences allow
crediting in "the documentation and/or other materials provided with
the distribution" but FreeType2 requires it in the documentation. So
this may be in the sense of the license but may not be legal.
    

This is an interesting problem, namely to distribute FreeType as part
of a library and not of an application, and up to now noone has ever
asked that question.

Personally, I consider a `splash screen' part of the documentation --
however, I can imagine that this is annoying to the end-user...

  

I'm a bit confused and about to remove FreeType because i cannot
ensure that every sublicensee properly uses the software.  But
before i do that i at least want to ask you if there is a way.
    

What kind of license do you use?  Does an application which uses your
library have to display your library's license to the end-user
somewhere in the documentation?  Then it should be easy to add a
sentence that your library uses FreeType.

Are there other opinions and/or suggestions?


    Werner