AutoMeasure Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Fifteen years ago NI was explicit in the Labview manuals that we had to include a specific copyright statement in the About menu item in a distributed Labview executable. Is that still the case today? If so, what is the specific statement? And to what degree is it 'required'? Thanks. Quote Link to comment
Ton Plomp Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Last year at my intermediate course this was mentioned as well. VIPM uses the following: LabVIEW Quote Link to comment
LAVA 1.0 Content Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Last year at my intermediate course this was mentioned as well. Taken from the Intermediate I Successful Deployment Practices workbook: "Note The front panel must include a National Instruments copyright notice. Refer to the National Instruments Software License Agreement ... about the requirements for any About dialog box you create for your LabVIEW application." For the latest requirements, see Section 12 of the SLA at http://www.ni.com/pdf/legal/us/software_li...e_agreement.pdf Thanks for reminding me of this! :thumbup: Quote Link to comment
eaolson Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 "Note The front panel must include a National Instruments copyright notice. Refer to the National Instruments Software License Agreement ... about the requirements for any About dialog box you create for your LabVIEW application." That sounds like NI is trying to assert ownership of the copyright of any compiled VI. Surely not? Quote Link to comment
LAVA 1.0 Content Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 That sounds like NI is trying to assert ownership of the copyright of any compiled VI. Surely not? I don't think so. I think it's more about look/feel/functionality of NI controls and indicators (charts, graphs, tables (yuck)) and such. By including NI, you are not so much giving NI rights to your code as you are protecting NI's look/feel/functionality; otherwise someone might buy your software, then duplicate the waveform chart functionality and sell it on the cheap; or maybe it would show up as a "Visual Studio for Vista" feature Also, I found my Intermediate I CD, and there was a simple About VI. I think it's OK to share this; or is it copyrighted? :headbang: Download File:post-949-1169750981.vi Quote Link to comment
Gary Rubin Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 "Note The front panel must include a National Instruments copyright notice. Refer to the National Instruments Software License Agreement ... about the requirements for any About dialog box you create for your LabVIEW application."See Section 12 of http://www.ni.com/pdf/legal/us/software_li...e_agreement.pdf I don't see the front panel thing in there. Just this: (1.) You include the following copyright notice "Copyright Quote Link to comment
Dave Graybeal Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 So if I'm reading this thread correctly... It sounds like If I create an EXE out of a labview application then I have to include an "about" menu item that contains some labview copyright information? Does this apply for applications build for internal only use? or just for sold/distributed? Dave Quote Link to comment
LAVA 1.0 Content Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 I don't see the front panel thing in there. Just this: That text was copied verbatim from the Intermediate I Guide I mentioned (page 10-4). I tried to put it in quotes but it might not have been obvious enough. I'll try and edit that... anyway, the statement points to the License Agreement, which I assume lists the true requiments... Does this apply for applications build for internal only use? or just for sold/distributed? IANAL. A quick search of the NI web site for "about box" returned this link to the 8.2 help. It has the same text I keyed in from last year's Intermediate I workbook re: placing a copyright on the front panel . The front panel requirement is not mentioned in the SLA. This is confusing... The SLA does not seem to make any differentiation between internal and commercial (resale) type use. I would guess that it's best to put it in if in doubt. Who knows what will happen to your software and hardware in the business world today... Your test equipment and software might be sold or sent off to a contract manufacturer, and you suddenly get to travel to far away places ( plus work long hours, eat too many burgers and drive smelly rental cars). Ah, the good old days... Quote Link to comment
Dave Graybeal Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Alright, I guess the about copyright information isnt really that big of a deal just a bit of an annoyance. The snipet about it being required on the front panel though... thats just downright ugly! It takes a lot of work to get some of the front panels for applications to have a nice look and feel to them. Having to toss in some copyright info just seems like extra clutter that would detract from the display. Hmm.. by reading the Quote about the front panel requirement... "Note The front panel must include a National Instruments copyright notice. Refer to the National Instruments Software License Agreement ... about the requirements for any About dialog box you create for your LabVIEW application." I see that it doesnt really say anything about copyright size requirements. As a matter of fact it doesnt really say anything about visibility either... I wonder if a size 1 font copyright notice moved to the background and placed behind a decoration would work. :ninja: Dave Quote Link to comment
LAVA 1.0 Content Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Why not to make the copyright to fade away in a few seconds after application start similar to last zero of 8.20 fading away... Perhaps someone writer an Xcontrol that does this :-D Quote Link to comment
Ton Plomp Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Why not to make the copyright to fade away in a few seconds after application start similar to last zero of 8.20 fading away... Perhaps someone writer an Xcontrol that does this :-D I like the idea. And besides that, the fact that NI refers to the front panel, so each dialog should have an NI tag... strange... Ton Quote Link to comment
jpdrolet Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 It may be read as the copyright must appear on the front panel of the About box. Quote Link to comment
Rolf Kalbermatter Posted January 26, 2007 Report Share Posted January 26, 2007 Alright, I guess the about copyright information isnt really that big of a deal just a bit of an annoyance. The snipet about it being required on the front panel though... thats just downright ugly! It takes a lot of work to get some of the front panels for applications to have a nice look and feel to them. Having to toss in some copyright info just seems like extra clutter that would detract from the display. Hmm.. by reading the Quote about the front panel requirement... I see that it doesnt really say anything about copyright size requirements. As a matter of fact it doesnt really say anything about visibility either... I wonder if a size 1 font copyright notice moved to the background and placed behind a decoration would work. :ninja: You all take the front panel to literal. You seem to assume that this is the front panel of your main screen but in LabVIEW the front panel is the second window besides the diagram window that EVERY VI has. So the course information says you need to have this on the (any? I really get a hunch that this quote was taken out of context and was actually in the chapter about creating an application and where the inclusion of an About screen was explained!!) front panel and the license agreement specifies that it has to be in the About screen. Seems very simple to me: What legal verbage do you trust more? Yes the license agreement! Is the course information wrong? No not really just not very clear. However I don't think that an invisible or unreadable copyright notice would stand in court if it ever got there. Rolf Kalbermatter Quote Link to comment
Dave Graybeal Posted January 26, 2007 Report Share Posted January 26, 2007 You all take the front panel to literal. I was just having a bit of fun really. I figured that this wasn't a real requirement. I didn't however realize before starting to read this thread that an about vi (or similar) with the copyright information was required on all built EXE's. All of my EXE's have been for internal use however though, so luckily it's really not that big of a deal for me to make the modifications and re-distribute throughout the lab. Considering that a large number of people probably never read the license, I wouldn't think it would be a bad idea for a reminder window or just reminder text box to be displayed during the building of an EXE through the application builder. It wouldn't have to be anything demanding, but just a simple text in the builder that reminded the user to include such information as needed. Dave Quote Link to comment
Yair Posted January 27, 2007 Report Share Posted January 27, 2007 As far as I can figure out, the license agreement (at least for 7.1) says that you have to put the text in the application's about box. Some of our applications are distributed without about boxes (they run full screen with no menus) and so they do not have this text. I don't know if this is problematic, but that's how I read it. In any case, the client doesn't care what the system was written it, as long as they get results. Quote Link to comment
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