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My question is regarding the legal aspect of including free open source 3rd party libraries in my commercial software. As an example, I have used the c# library MySqlBackup.NET to be able to backup and restore a MySQL database from my C# app. The license page of the 3rd party library website states:

"Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any means."

The rest of the license can be read here. Is it correct that I must have a reference of this is my own Terms and Conditions? If so, what is the correct way to go about this? Perhaps as an Appendix at the end?

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The license in question is the Unlicense. You don't have to do anything.

You may want to make a note of where you got it from, just so that whenever someone comes across this code later and wonders who wrote it. But that's up to you.

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  • Thank you. Perhaps that library doesn't apply for my question. I have other 3rd party libraries which use different licenses such as this one codeproject.com/info/cpol10.aspx It states under Restrictions that I must include this license with all distributions of my executable. How exactly is that achieved?
    – nerdalert
    Jun 23, 2016 at 7:42
  • Another would be this one sshnet.codeplex.com/license
    – nerdalert
    Jun 23, 2016 at 7:46
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    You need to ask a different answer for a different license, there is no single answer that can cover all known licenses. Jun 23, 2016 at 9:40
  • As a side note and irrespective if the license of this utility if it combined in certain ways with MySQL, the GPL of MySQL may apply too. Jun 24, 2016 at 8:13

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