Difference between revisions of "Licensing FAQ"

Revision as of 08:24, 27 June 2018

UHD is publicly offered under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3), and is also available under an alternative, less-restrictive license. For more details, please see the Licenses page on ettus.com.

RFNoC is publicly offered under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

This page contains some Frequently Asked Questions about these licenses. Please note that while we can provide guidance about our licensing model, you should make license decisions based on your own legal counsel.

Frequently Asked Questions

"Does the GPLv3 license prohibit me from selling a product that uses your software?"

No, you can sell products & services with GPLv3 software. You must provide the source code for your product, though. See the question below.

"Can I use the GPLv3-licensed version of UHD in my proprietary product?"

If you use the GPLv3-licensed version of UHD in your application, your application must then also be licensed under the GPLv3. If you want to create a proprietary product with Ettus Research HW / SW, you need to use the Alternative License, which was created specifically for this purpose.

"We are using the GPLv3-licensed version of UHD internally, but do not want to release our source code."

That's fine! The GPL only obligates sharing source code with an external party when they receive your application.

"We don't mind releasing our source code, but we need to make changes to UHD. Do we need the Alternative License?"

No, you do not need the Alternative License. The GPLv3-licensed version of UHD is perfect for this. It allows you to make changes to UHD as you wish, as long as you provide the source code for your "fork" of UHD to recipients of your application.

"We don't mind giving source code to our customers, but don't want to release it publicly. Do we need the Alternative License?"

It depends. The GPLv3 does not require you to release your source code publicly. It only requires you to provide your source code to anyone to whom you convey your application. Your application must be licensed under the GPLv3, though, so your customers would have the right to share the source code more broadly if they wished.

"We are using the GPLv3 version of your software. If we integrate your software into our product, does that mean we have to ship your source code along with our product?"

If you have not made changes to our source code, then you can simply point your customers to our public software repositories. If you have made changes to our source code, you must either provide your "fork" of our software to your customers, or contribute your changes back to us so that they are in the mainline version of the software.