Understanding application licenses when using third party libraries in an android project

Question

I'm developing an app for the 2nd time but it's the first time i'm using third party libraries in my application. One of the libraries seems to have an MIT license and the other is the android support library.

My main question is practical: How shall I include each library's license text into my application? I'd also like to know which license I need for the support library?

Additional details on the libraries:

First of all, I think I'm using the android support library. I know it's a stupid question, but just making sure, based on my gradle file hereafter, am I correct ?

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 26
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.dcv.spdesigns.dokkancards"
        minSdkVersion 21
        targetSdkVersion 26
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:26.1.0'
    implementation 'com.android.support.constraint:constraint-layout:1.0.2'
    implementation 'com.android.support:support-v4:26.1.0'
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.12'
    androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test:runner:1.0.1'
    androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:3.0.1'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:26.1.0'
    compile 'com.github.medyo:android-about-page:1.2.2'
}

I'm also using another library as you can see by this line :

compile 'com.github.medyo:android-about-page:1.2.2'

The above uses the MIT License from what i've seen here : link

Answer 1

It's kind-of ironic that your question is about how to handle the license of a library that generates About pages for apps, because the most common practice for what to do with such licenses is to display them on the About page.

The MIT license requires you to include the copyright notice in your project (although it's usually only understood to require it to be included in the source code, i.e. by not removing it from its location in the original code, but the text is ambiguous so I'd err on the side of caution and include the copyright message on your About page).

The Android Support Library is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The requirement here is that you must include a copy of the license in your distribution, and in your About page is probably the easiest place to do so.