What exactly is "Binary Form"?

Question

I am asking in the context of the licenses on code that one sees all over the place. Typically, they say something along the lines of "if you release a product containing this in binary form, it must contain X, Y, and Z."

Does that mean that if I use the code in an app, the app has to have a screen somewhere that contains X, Y, and Z in human-readable form?

Answer 1

The text is indicating that you must include X, Y, and Z if you distribute the compiled form of the code (as opposed to the source code). Assuming that X, Y, and Z are, for example, copyright notices, they would generally need to be included in documentation and other human-readable materials distributed along with the binaries.

Answer 2

It's referring to if you use the library in its compiled form. Binary is what gets run by the actual processor; i.e. code gets compiled to machine code for your processor at one point or another.

Answer 3

What exactly is “Binary Form”?

• In laymans' term, "Binary Form" is encoded form that is only understood by machine (or any other special program made to read it - eg: docx file).
• For more details there's wikipedia.

Does that mean that if I use the code in an app, the app has to have a screen somewhere that contains X, Y, and Z in human-readable form?

• Yes, i.e. you should follow what the line says: "if you release a product containing this in binary form, it must contain X, Y, and Z."