Attribution/licensing requirements

1

I’ll preface this by stating I’m aware that the users of this forum are not lawyers and that responses to this question will not constitute official legal advice.

With that out of the way, what exactly do I need to do to comply with MonoGame’s license, when I publish a game? MonoGame is, according to their repo, under both the MS-PL license and the MIT license. The parts I’m concerned about are these:

From the MS-PL license:

(C) If you distribute any portion of the software, you must retain all
copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices that are present in the
software.

(D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may
do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with
your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or
object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this
license.

From the MIT license:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

What exactly do these requirements mean? How do I comply? Do I simply include a license.txt in the same directory as my game’s executable with verbatim copies of those licenses? Do I need to actually include the text in my game, like in a special viewable “Legal” section or in the credits?

Currently, as far as attribution goes, in my game’s credits I have a single line near the end that states “Made using MonoGame”, without MonoGame’s logo or anything like that. Is this sufficient attribution?

2

Another page to observe is the readme on:

MonoGame.Logo/README.md at master · MonoGame/MonoGame.Logo (github.com)

IANAL

So, if you check at least a dozen indie games, see if they include a viewable licence, and go from there… [EDIT, Oh and if they don’t always have it viewable, see if there are other links to it, and at the very least is easily user accessible or imply the directory to seek, inside your app…]

I think if you say ‘Made using MonoGame/MonoGame.Rocks’ [one or the other] and link the MG site, this should cover that element… you can always email the MG team for clarification on valid attribution.

I recommend reading the readme linked above.

Hope this helped somewhat…

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3

Thanks! I wasn’t planning on using the logo anywhere, in part to avoid any complications.

I just checked the files for the game A Short Hike and indeed found a text file with copies of various licenses, so I guess that’s what I’ll do.

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4

Actually, I wonder if I need to include a copy of the MS-PL code. Specifically, since I won’t be distributing the source code, only the compiled DLLs, I think maybe only this part applies to me:

If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.

That part confuses me. What would be a license that complies with the license? I wasn’t really planning on distributing the game under a license at all, just putting it on storefronts like Steam and Itch.io.

Additionally, I’m somewhat worried that including those two licenses along with my game could make it seem like I want to apply them to the game, specifically stuff like

including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software

that I definitely wouldn’t want to apply to my game. How would I make it clear that the licenses only apply to the MonoGame compiled code distributed with my game?

Pinging, if it’s not too much of a bother, some of the active contributors (sorry in advance!) to see if they have any enlightening insights about expectations regarding the MS-PL license in particular: @mrhelmut @Jjagg @Tom

Currently my best guess as to what I should do is including a text file titled “MonoGame licenses” in the same directory as my game’s executable, where the text file states the following:

This game (game title) was made using the MonoGame framework (www.monogame.net), which is licensed for redistribution under the MS-PL and MIT software licenses, listed below.

and then listing the two licenses verbatim underneath a header titled “MONOGAME LICENSES”.

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5

This got me curious and taking my own advice…

I looked at some games I had installed via GoG…

– Jotun - Valhalla Edition

Click to Read

Has absolutely nothing lol, no licence in-game, no text files in the install folder, nothing on the start menu… nada… zilch…

– Beyond Good and Evil

Click to Read

This has a lovely multilingual readme file, worth a look if you have this game.

Remember, your licences and everything else can go in a readme file.

– Broken Sword 2 Remastered

Click to Read

I found an SDL licence file, but the readme had not much in the way of copyright or licences… weird one…

– Conspiracy Theory [Read at your own discretion]

Click to Read {if you dare}

BowlingGIF

I have started to notice a pattern, Unity made games don’t bother with readmes or licences…

I kind of feel sleepy so, can keep looking if it helps, but later…

Hope this helps…

It’s always confusing with some licences…

6

Generally this is handled with a page or menu option that opens up a list of third party libraries, and you list monogame plus the license and can link back to the source.

It’s not as scary as it looks