Runtime Engine Distribution Licensing (Legal) Issues?

[YohanShminge]

Hi Everyone,

I need an official word from National Instruments on this one.

I've written a program using LabVIEW that I would like to distribute to the public.  It runs in conjunction with a C#-based executable and is installed using the C# program's installer.  Is there any legal/licensing problem with including the LabVIEW Runtime Engine installer with the C# program's installer?

Thanks!

-Yohan

[Hillman · Accepted solution]

Hi Yohan,

Thanks for your post and I hope your well.

You can distribute LabVIEW executables freely. There is no need of a license to run executables that only require the Runtime Engine. Other modules such as Real Time do require a Run-Time License. Please see this link for more details: Which Software Requires a Run-Time License?

 Can I ask more about your application - why do you require to distrubte these together?

Hope this helps,

[YohanShminge]

Sounds good, thanks!

It's a somewhat complicated situation.  The software is for a custom data acquisition board which was not originally designed for use with LabVIEW (hence, the C# program).  However, because of the flexibility of LabVIEW, particularly for control applications, we developed a means of interfacing the board with LabVIEW (through .NET).  Now we've got a second set of demonstration applications that's we'd like to include with the main C# program.  Hence, the need for the LabVIEW runtime engine.

[m_zealear]

Hello-

My company recently developed a GUI for a communications module accessory for our main product line, and we've been arguing as to whether or not we can legally distribute the accomanying run-time engines with our VI or whether they must download them on their own from the website? The run-time engines are LabVIEW 8.0 and VISA 4.5. Thanks!

Morgan Zealear

Manufacturing Engineer

Sierra Instruments

Monterey, CA

[Dennis_Knutson]

One of the options when you create an installer is to include the LabVIEW and VISA runtimes so no, you can distribute them along with your app.

[YohanShminge]

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Dennis Knutson wrote:

One of the options when you create an installer is to include the LabVIEW and VISA runtimes so no, you can distribute them along with your app.

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Thanks Dennis - to clarify, did you mean to say "... so YES, you can distribute them..."  or "... so no, you CANNOT distribute them"?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Sorry, should be 'so, yes'. If you couldn't distribute them, then you would not have the option to include them in the installer.

[YohanShminge]

Great, that makes sense!  Thanks!