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I am confused about using licensed open source control in my comercial iOS application. Do I have to include any license in my code or i can just add open source control and push app to app store?

For example have look on following

https://www.cocoacontrols.com/controls/klnoteviewcontroller

It has two lincenses. I can download it for free using Apache 2.0 License but I am not sure if I can use it my paid iOS application.

Please advice

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  • Have you used the paid version or the free one ?
    – IronManGill
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 11:03
  • I have used Free one
    – abdus.me
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 11:03

2 Answers 2

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The license is written in the code itself so you do not have to include anything extra .... The control is for you to use at your disposal.... And since you used the free one there is no need to do anything extra . I have used loads of controls and have apps live on the App Store and I havent faced any such issue and there is no commercial license problem... Hope this helped.

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  • Thanks for your answer The link that i have shared in question has two licenses. If it allow me to redistribute using Apache 2.0 then what would be the purpose of $50 paid license... That confuses me
    – abdus.me
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 11:30
  • @abdus.me The publisher of the component should have read carefully the Apache 2 license. You have no advantage to buy the commercial license. He is the one that was confused between GPL v2 and Apache 2 ;).
    – poiuytrez
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 11:43
  • Apache-2.0 requires that you pass along the license text. So your users need to get the license text and need to learn about the copyright.
    – hakre
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 14:27
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The Apache 2 license is considered as permissive. You can include Apache 2 license code in your commercial application and you can distribute/sell your software under an other license (commercial) without the need to redistribute the source code.

Your only requirement is to add a notice text for informational purpose only. For example, include somewhere (for example in the About menu): This software includes parts of "KLNoteViewController" under Apache 2 license.

Keep also the Copyright notice in the source code.

The "Redistribution" paragraph is the most interesting for you.

To sum up this paragraph in easier terms:
1. Add the Apache 2 license in the source code & somewhere viewable by your end users
2. If you modify a source code which was under the Apache 2 license, you still need to include the Apache 2 license at the top of this source code add write that this file has been modified
3. Do not delete the original copyright notices
4. If a NOTICE file was included in the original code, redistribute it in the way you prefer (for example a popup in the third parties notice menu)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_License

PS: Adding the Apache 2 license text seems stupid for an app that you will never open source. However, it is still useful if you sell your source code to another company. They will be able to check where some original open source software comes from.

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