About the OpenVINO Distribution license

[North-man]

Hi,

I recognize that OpenVINO Toolkit is free for commercial use.

However, when I checked the following license terms, there was a sentence that I was worried about. (The link destination is the same as the EULA.txt included in the installed OpenVINO environment. The OpenVINO version I'm using is 2021.4.752)

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/develop/external/us/en/documents/intel-openvino-license-agreements.pdf

2.1  License.
Subject to this Agreement, Intel grants to you, for the term, a worldwide, nonexclusive, nontransferable, non-sublicensable, revocable, fully paid-up license to:

(a)  use the Toolkit in your workplace;

(b) modify source code of the Toolkit; and

(c) distribute an object code version of the Redistributables under terms at least as restrictive as the terms in this Agreement.

According to (a), it can only be used in "your workspace".

Does that mean it can't be used commercially?

This differs from my understanding that it is free for commercial use.

Maybe my understanding is wrong, please help me.

Thanks.

[Munesh_Intel]

Hi North-man,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit is available via End User License Agreement (EULA) license.

The relevant EULA for Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit is End User License Agreement for the Intel® Software Development Products (Version October 2018)

For your information, for OpenVINO 2021.4 LTS, the End User License Agreement for the Intel® Software Development Products (Version October 2018) is also available at the following location (for Windows version):

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\openvino_2021.4.752\licensing\Intel_Software_Development_Products.txt

Please take into account the restrictions related to license types listed in Section 3 and other restrictions mentioned in Section 4.

We strongly suggest you review EULA with your legal department or legal officer, as the messages from Intel Customer Support representatives do not have any legal effect.

Regards,

Munesh

[North-man]

Hi Munesh,

Thank you for your response.

I found two license files in the following locations in my environment.

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\openvino_2021.4.752\licensing
  • EULA.txt (.rtf)
  • Intel_Software_Development_Products.txt (.rtf)

What I was checking is EULA.txt, but should I follow Intel_Software_Development_Products.txt ?

If so, I will check with my legal department as you advised.

Regards,

North-man

[Munesh_Intel]

Hello North-man,

We are checking with Programs Team regarding your query, and will get back to you once we've obtained updates from them.

Regards,

Munesh

[Munesh_Intel]

Hello North-man,

We’ve obtained reply from the Programs Team.

If you want to re-distribute OpenVINO™ Runtime, you should re-distribute Intel® OpenVINO™ Distribution License (EULA.txt).

If you want to re-distribute any other component of OpenVINO™, you should include the additional relevant license file as well. For example, for DL Streamer, you should add End User License Agreement for the Intel® Software Development Products (Intel_Software_Development_Products.txt). Please refer to the section “Included in This Release” in Release Notes for Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ Toolkit 2021.4 LTS.

Regards,

Munesh

[North-man]

Hello Munesh,

Thank you for answering.

I understood as follows.
・When I re-distribute OpenVINO Runtime, I have to re-distribute Intel® OpenVINO™ Distribution License (EULA.txt) together.
・In addition,  Intel® Software Development Products (Intel_Software_Development_Products.txt) must also be re-distributed according to the Component.

My first question was:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1  License.
Subject to this Agreement, Intel grants to you, for the term, a worldwide, nonexclusive, nontransferable, non-sublicensable, revocable, fully paid-up license to:

(a)  use the Toolkit in your workplace;

(b) modify source code of the Toolkit; and

(c) distribute an object code version of the Redistributables under terms at least as restrictive as the terms in this Agreement.

According to (a), it can only be used in "your workspace".

Does that mean it can't be used commercially?

This differs from my understanding that it is free for commercial use.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What about the above?

My understanding is that redistribution for commercial use is fine. Is this correct?

[Munesh_Intel · Accepted solution]

Hi North-man,

When you download Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit from https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/tools/openvino-toolkit/download.html, the license type is “Single Named-User License Type”. With this license:

• If you consume binaries into your application and include OpenVINO™ toolkit as part of a larger software product:
  • There is no need for any special agreement as long as the binaries are part of redist.txt. 

• If you redistribute only the runtime package: Runtime packages for the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit are made available via package managers, like YUM and APT repositories, Docker containers, DockerHub and Anaconda.
  • These are released under Intel Simplified Software License (ISSL) and therefore you can distribute them without any special agreement. Reference: Intel Simplified Software License (Version October 2022)

• If you redistribute the entire Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit as is (i.e., as a pre-installed software in hardware or systems, in app marketplaces, etc.):
  • This requires a special agreement to be signed between Intel and you to allow for re-distribution.

So, if you just want to re-distribute only the files or folders listed in redist.txt, you are free to do so without any special agreement.

Regards,

Munesh

[North-man]

Hi, Munesh

Thank you very much for your response!

In my case, I understand that it can be done freely without any special agreement.

Regards, 

North-man.

[Munesh_Intel]

Hello North-man,

This thread will no longer be monitored since this issue has been resolved. If you need any additional information from Intel, please submit a new question.

Regards,

Munesh