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NI copyright notice requirement for EXEs


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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.

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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:

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"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?

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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 :shifty:

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

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"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

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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 :blink: . 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... :wub:

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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... :book:

"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

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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

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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... :book:

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

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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

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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.

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