How to ship a licensed third party? [closed]
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Improve this questionA free command line utility X can be download from the web. I have built a utility Y which relies on X. The license of X does not allow me to bundle it with Y.
Am I allowed to do any of the following?
- In my README tell the user "go to X site and download it".
- In my installation get user approval to automatically download X from the web.
- same as #2 but without user approval.
- bundle X - it's free anyway (and so is Y).
I know I will not get a perfect legal advise here but I want to hear your opinions.
You need to follow the license.
My understanding of that would be that 1 and 2 are OK, 3 is gray area (i.e. I wouldn't do this) and 4 an absolute no-no.
Of course this is without reading the exact license and simply following your description.
However, I would consult a lawyer if this is a concern.
Since you commented that is not a library but an standalone application, I would read the license carefully because is possible that even use the tool from your application is not allowed, maybe it's only free for standalone use.
As other people have commented, you should get legal advice since the legal jargon usually is quite difficult to grasp for non-lawyers...
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