Use extensions?

Appathon
1

I want to use free extensions for my app, but how do we give credit to them? Also, how do we get permission from the author that we can use it for our apps and how do we show it too? The website says we need to have permission but I don't know what that would look like, especially since most authors simply might just not reply at all.

2

I can only speak for myself: anyone can use my extensions for whatever purpose. In addition, I do not expressly ask for my name to be mentioned. So everyone is free to decide if he/she wants to do it.

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3

Any MIT extensions are available to use. For any other extension author, you must get written permission and include a text file in the assets with copies of the written permission.

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4

Hi, i'm making an app for the Appathon 2023 that needs the help of an extension. Are extensions allowed?

5

Hello Mario,

Yes, extensions are allowed in the 2023 Appathon, so long as they are free and accessible to everyone. You will also have to obtain permission from the extension author.

Please search the forum next time, as similar questions may already be answered.

6

Everything can be found on the appathon website.

7

Does this also apply to extensions that are a "free software" (both open source and licensed with a free software license) Because that confuses me as a bit. I know that letting the extension authors know that their extensions are used for an appathon is a good thing and I appreciate that, but as an extension author, I don't already restrict what my extensions are used for, otherwise, this would be considered as a violation of freedoms of the "free software".

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

Also, since extensions cannot be run standalone and require App Inventor, are extensions created by someone else still linked to MIT?

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8

All my extensions are covered by an appropriate licence:

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License with attribution.

Please use name = METRIC RAT AI2 and link to the source site when giving credit.

9

We had a more than extensive discussion about this in the power user forum from June to August 2022 with almost 100 posts. Here's just one of my dozens of posts on this:

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Let us provide the link, eh ?

https://community-appinventor-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/t/aias-posted-on-the-community-regarding-inclusion-of-extensions/59967

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And for the non-power users:

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14

Our rule state (via the Appathon FAQ):

You may use any extensions from MIT, or any free extension so long as you include documentation or a note from the extension author that it can be redistributed by MIT as part of the competition.

If the extension is licensed under a free license such as the GPL or similar then this would be acceptable.

We publish the App Inventor sources under the Apache 2.0 Software License on GitHub, so technically anyone could download, build, and run their own App Inventor instance and use extensions without MIT's involvement. Other companies have done this to some success.

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