Where to put open-source credit information for an iPhone app?

Question

I'm finalizing my first iPhone apps; and wonder where should I put credit information for open-sources I used in my iPhone app? Should I put it directly in my app (users can see it if they press "About" button) or put it in a file go along with the bundle?

The 2 open-source frameworks I used have "new BSD license" and "Apache license".

What is your practice for this issue?

Thanks.

Solution

I have recently been wondering about this too.

Some Apple apps (Pages, Numbers) put it into an acknowledgements page in their section of the settings app, though I have not yet figured out an easy way to do this - each paragraph of text has to be a "Group" element, which is a little hard to get setup. This is the option I use, see this question to see how I do it:

best way to add license section to iOS settings bundle

Other apps put it in the itunes connect license agreement section, which is a lot simpler.

A third option (used by the ebay app amongst others) is having an "about" screen hidden somewhere in the application, with a "legal" subpage.

Comments

[KONG]

Hi, can you tell me where I can find "the itunes connect license agreement section"?

[JosephH]

It's where you put the EULA when preparing to submit your app for app store review in itunes connect on the apple developer website.

[Peter Warbo]

@JosephH can you link to an app that has put their acknowledgements in the EULA?

[JosephH]

@PeterWarbo My memory of research I did 3 years ago doesn't stretch as far as remembering app names, sorry! You'd probably want to doublecheck is was allowed by the licenses of the components you're using - some licenses insist that the license text 'accompanies' the application, and it's not 100% clear that EULA is compliant with that. (Perhaps that explains why it doesn't seem to be a widely used method.)

[Peter Warbo]

@JosephH I found Nike+ running app having an EULA: itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/… so is this an acceptable approach to put the Open Source acknowledgements in the EULA (and not have it at all in the app)