Script and GUI usage for commercial work - license

Use of the platform
1 
import sys

import math

import salome

salome.salome_init()

import salome_notebook

notebook = salome_notebook.NoteBook()

import GEOM

from salome.geom import geomBuilder

import SALOMEDS

Hi, we were considering using Salome for commercial work, our main usage would be via a python script, with the above imports. Since this does not require the GUI, can you confirm whether we can do this for commercial work, or do we still need a pyQT license?

If we use the GUI version of salome on our own computers, for commercial work, do we need a pyQT license?

If we use the python-script version of salome on our own computers, for commercial work, do we need a pyQT license?

We would like to send the above script to our customer. Can you confirm whether we can do this for commercial work, or do we still need a pyQT license?

We would not modify any of Salome, GUI, or otherwise. We would not ship any of Salome to our customer, GUI, or otherwise. Salome would not be part of our product. However, we would provide scripts like the above to our customers. Where do we stand in this case?

I am asking because of the following comments in the 9.15 user manual do not provide enough information in my case to assess the above questions:

Hereby we explicitly declare that PyQt and PyQtChart (by Riverbank Computing Ltd) are distributed under
the terms of GNU GPL license; for more details, please refer to the PyQt site:
Riverbank Computing | License FAQ
If you plan using SALOME for commercial purposes, please consider obtaining a commercial license for PyQt
from Riverbank Computing Ltd.

Any help welcome.
Thanks

2

Hi,

I wondered if anyone could follow up with help or advice? Do I need to clarify any of my questions? Happy to do so.

Thanks,

3

Dear Ajp,

If you are using Salome as a library in a packaged software, and if Salome is incorporating PyQT, then you have 2 options :

  1. You licence your work as GPL → you can still make your client pay, and use the result for commercial purposes.
  2. you licence your work as proprietary licence → you need a commercial PyQT licence.

Also mind that if you are only distributing your script as unpackaged source code to your client, then the GPL licence is not triggered.

4

what does that mean?

I am using Salome as downloaded from the internet, and running the GUI, or writing a script and calling it via ‘salome -t script.py’. Since I have not changed the downloaded software, then yes I believe once untared, it uses PyQt5.

Do your points still apply?

5

Package means you are distributing a .zip file or a Docker container.

If your client is downloading Salomé from the official repo, and then uses the script you provided, you are in a “grey area”, where the library is dynamically linked.

FSF and some people will argue that your Python program should be GPL licensed, others may demonstrate the opposite. There is no court-ruled precedent.