[Deukhoofd]

The software license is MIT, but there's a page on their wiki that vaguely says they take a cut of your earnings over 1000$. It definitely does not mention 30% however:

> If you have used this plugin for FREE but monetized more than $1000, you are also required to get a license, or share us some Ad traffic as stated in win-win partnership model below

> Ship our code with yours to end-user, no need paying a cent at all, instead, share 2 percent ad traffic, so that we can both benefit and cover our cost to maintain and enhance this project.

[liveoneggs]

MIT license does not disallow monetization or rev share. It does allow you to fork this plugin and remove the code responsible for rev share, etc. This is all above board.

[nerdawson]

From their license agreement:

> If you have used this plugin for FREE but monetized more than $1000, you are also required to get a license, or share us some Ad traffic as stated in win-win partnership model below.

https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/wiki/Lic...

The project however includes the following the license: https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/blob/mas...

Surely releasing code under an MIT license makes their statement invalid. Why would I be "required to get a license" and offered a couple of commercial options? It sounds like they need to get some legal help to properly license the project in the way they want to.

Furthermore, pricing should be clear. It's deceptive to hide it within their so-called "license" section. As a developer, why would I read the license section if it's clearly marked within GitHub as being licensed under MIT and has a LICENSE file confirming that?

[munk-a]

It depends on the details of the license. If it was a bog standard MIT license (which in this case it is) then you could surely fork the repo remove that logic and carry on with your day (though you'd probably still need to credit the original author with the attribution clause) - MIT like licenses can dictate some terms around uses while allowing most modifications though.

That said - you do need to actually modify the code yourself, if you instead decided to use some man-in-the-middle attack to modify the packets in flow you may still be misuing the software. There are ways you could approach a solution that would in fact violate the license, as trivial as it is to circumvent.

[nerdawson]

In my opinion, the way they present pricing is deceptive. They have a table of contents and hide pricing details under "License".

The very first paragraph reads:

>You can use the plugin for free, or you can also pay to get a license. IMPORTANT!!! Before using the plugin, please read the following content and accept the agreement. THIS WILL AVOID POTENTIAL PROBLEM AND DISPUTE.

If as a user you're paying 2% of ad revenue, the plugin isn't free.

> If you don't want to get a license as your apps may not earn too much, or you don't have a PayPal account to pay, here is a compromised option. You don't have to pay, we are also okay if just share 2 percent user traffic, so that we can cover our effort and focus on maintenance and online support.

They don't make clear that that's the default behaviour. That by doing nothing you're consenting to their 2%.

If a developer wants to profit from their work, they should behave like a business.

[liveoneggs]

The monitization bit is the "license" for use of the code. The MIT license applies to the source code itself, not the execution of it.

MIT allows you to: "use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software". That's it.

[nerdawson]

Thank you. I’m realising my understanding of licenses was inaccurate and that I really ought to scrutinise projects more thoroughly.

[drran]

The author of software can release his work under any number of licenses, or none at all. An author can release the same code under MIT, Apache, GPL, MPL, or commercial license at the same time.

[nerdawson]

If the code is tagged as being MIT in GitHub and includes an MIT license file, can an author reasonably argue that an end-user is receiving the code under a different license?

[drran]

> If the code is tagged as being MIT in GitHub

Yes

> includes an MIT license file

Maybe. MIT license permits additional license restrictions on top of license. For example, MIT code can be copied into a proprietary system with a different license, which will forbid copying code out.

[teddyh]

> there's a page on their wiki that vaguely says

A page titled “License Agreement”, clearly linked from the home page.

(Regarding the 30%, I agree – this was questionable at best.)

[vertex-four]

It is listed as MIT in the package.json, the LICENSE file, and the plugin.xml file. That’s more than reasonable enough to consider it MIT, and that’s where license information would be picked up by e.g. any license-scanning tools.

With the multiple contradictory statements, even just within the README, though, my company’s lawyer would say we can’t use this dependency at all if I showed it to them.

[y4mi]

Afaik, the MIT licence grants you the freedom to do whatever you want with this code.

This code is written to share revenue with the author after a threshold, but that's merely the application/code working as intended.

You're free to fork the code, remove this sharing and republish the dependency under another name for example, that's the only thing that MIT is about

[vertex-four]

The argument in this thread is that you can’t, and you agreed to the other License Agreement. See the root comment, which thinks that this code is not under the MIT license.

[y4mi]

And as I said: a feature like this is entirely possible with the MIT licence, because it only addresses the licenced source code, not what said code actually does at runtime. Just read the licence yourself, it's exceptionally short.

------

Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

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

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

[kroltan]

I agree in principle. It is bad form to not try to respect industry conventions.

However, blaming "e.g. any license-scanning tools" is not correct either, since that would be clearly a limitation of the license tool, encoding assumptions of location and standardization that are nothing more than convention. I mean this in the sense that if you went to court and your excuse was "my tool didn't pick that up", you would probably not be victorious, since the terms were laid out clearly for human consumption.

And I agree, a lawyer would not want to use this dependency, but it shouldn't take a lawyer to do that. You are responsible for the legal implications of using anyone else's software.

[PeterisP]

The point is that licenses and license offers are self-sufficient, a "clarification" from another document simply does not constitute a binding clause in a license.

If you have an offer of the MIT license from the author (as in the LICENSE.txt), then no clarifications or restrictions linked from the home page affect it, and other offers of other licenses are possible but not relevant if you like this particular offer.

[nerdponx]

The MIT license also clearly states that the software comes with NO WARRANTY (in all caps) and that you use it at your own risk. I don't see what the MIT license has to do with this at all.

[teddyh]

Maybe. That’s a very… programmer-like way of looking at licenses, though, and it’s not necessarily compatible with how licenses are interpreted by judges.

[abofh]

There is no indication that anyone was charged to use the software- it was the software that charged them

[bryanrasmussen]

shady, but then again good enough for apple so..